Subject: Last Call: <draft-eggert-successful-bar-bof-05.txt> (Considerations for Having a Successful "Bar BOF" Side Meeting) to Informational RFC

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:20:13 -0700

The IESG has received a request from an individual submitter to consider
the following document:
- 'Considerations for Having a Successful "Bar BOF" Side Meeting'
  <draft-eggert-successful-bar-bof-05.txt> as an Informational RFC

The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
[email-masked] mailing lists by 2011-09-08. Exceptionally, comments may be
sent to [email-masked] instead. In either case, please retain the
beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting.

Abstract

   New work is typically brought to the IETF by a group of interested
   individuals.  IETF meetings are a convenient place for such groups to
   hold informal get-togethers to discuss and develop their ideas.  Such
   side meetings, which are not reflected in the IETF meeting agenda and
   have no official status, are often half-jokingly referred to as "bar
   BOF" sessions, to acknowledge that some of them may eventually lead
   to a proposal for an official IETF BOF ("birds of a feather" session)
   on a given topic.

   During recent IETF meetings, many such "bar BOF" get-togethers have
   been organized and moderated in ways that made them increasingly
   indistinguishable from official IETF BOFs or sometimes even IETF
   working group meetings.

   This document argues that this recent trend is not helpful in
   reaching the ultimate goal of many of these get-togethers, i.e., to
   efficiently discuss and develop ideas for new IETF work.  It
   encourages the organizers to consider the benefits of holding them in
   much less formal settings, and to also consider alternative means to
   develop their ideas.  This document also recommends that the
   community abandon the term "bar BOF" and instead use other terms such
   "side meeting", in order to stress the unofficial nature of these
   get-togethers.

The file can be obtained via
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-eggert-successful-bar-bof/

IESG discussion can be tracked via
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-eggert-successful-bar-bof/

No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.