Subject: BOF preparations and involvement of the proponents in the lead up to BOF decisions

From: IETF Chair <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2017 22:16:40 +0200

At IETF 97, the IESG had noted that we had started providing minutes from
the so called “BOF Coordination Calls”. In these calls, we go through the
set of proposed BOFs and other possible new meetings, in an effort to
help the responsible AD decide how the specific proposals should go
ahead. Since IETF 96, the IESG and IAB have started publishing the
minutes from these calls.

In the plenary open mike session, Margaret Cullen raised a question
of BOF proponents being invited to the calls. As far as we were able
to determine, this hasn’t been the practise during the time that the
calls have been run. But the discussion prompted us to document
our expectations for the process and make a change, starting from
now, i.e., preparations for the IETF-98 BOFs.

Our main expectation is that BOF efforts should be far along
before the BOF proposal cutoff date, as listed in
https://www.ietf.org/meeting/important-dates.html

Far enough to have had significant list discussion, and have 
some of the most obvious questions at least discussed if not 
answered. The purpose of the BOF call is *not* to run the BOF.

The role of the BOF call is to determine how far along the effort is
and whether it is ready for the community discussion in the meeting
or not.

We also spend a lot of time finding IAB BOF shepherds, talking about the
scheduling, or suggesting people that could help.

A BOF that is not clearly ready for community discussion will most likely
not be scheduled at the upcoming meeting.

We also expect that the pre-BOF discussions happen primarily on
a public forum, such as the BOF’s mailing list or area list. They
should not be happening only privately, because it becomes
impossible for others to assess the situation.

However, we have decided to leave it to the individual sponsoring
ADs whether they feel it is necessary to invite BOF organisers/
proponents on the call. This should be seen as an exceptional
case, but sometimes it can be helpful to answer questions, even
if there isn’t much time for an extensive discussion.

Our main guidance is for the BOF proponents to make sure there
are documents and broad discussion as the BOF is being prepared.
This allows the ADs to make their assessments.

Finally, we’d like to remind everyone that BOFs are just one way
of introducing work to the IETF. New work can often be taken up
by existing working groups, and new working groups can be
chartered without using an IETF meeting cycle for a formal
BOF meeting. If you are uncertain, members of the IESG 
or IAB can provide guidance on the options that are available

Guidance on running successful BOF meetings can be
found at https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5434

Jari Arkko for the IESG and IAB