Subject: [ietf-provreg] RE: Last Call: draft-gould-rfc4310bis (Domain Name System(DNS) Security Extensions Mapping for the Extensible ProvisioningProtocol

From: "Hollenbeck, Scott" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 07:24:39 -0500

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On 
> Behalf Of Bernie Hoeneisen
> Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2010 12:54 PM
> To: Alexey Melnikov
> Cc: EPP Provreg; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: Last Call: draft-gould-rfc4310bis (Domain Name 
> System(DNS) Security Extensions Mapping for the Extensible 
> ProvisioningProtocol

[snip]

> > Can you please explain your concerns about lack of an official IETF 
> > mailing list?
> 
> I care about the following:
> 
> 1) Quality of the Standards
> 2) Openness / transparency of the Standards process
> 3) Checks and balance in the system
> 
> I am not sure whether the EPP standardization has always 
> addressed these points adequately in the past.
> 
> Since the provreg WG has been closed (approx. 7 years ago), 
> quite some standardization work has been done on EPP. The 
> proposals were discussed on the provreg list (hosted outside 
> IETF for historical reasons) and went through the IESG as AD 
> sponsored. I am not sure whether all the relevant 
> stakeholders have been involved in this process adequately.

Even when provreg was a working group the same mailing list, hosted in
the same place, was used for group discussion.  An explicit decision was
made to keep the list open for ongoing discussion after the working
group was closed.  Nothing has changed in terms of the agreed-upon place
for ongoing work discussion.

All individual submission work that happened after the group closed was
done in complete accordance with IETF procedures, with appropriate
public announcements, using the agreed-upon mailing list.  Responsible
"stakeholders" have a responsibility to stay involved, Bernie.  I know I
can't have done any more to let people know what's been going on.

Scott

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 12:52:52 +0000

> "stakeholders" have a responsibility to stay involved, Bernie.

New stakeholders also have to find out how to _get_ involved.

As a relative newbie to the IETF world (and only being employed in the 
registry business since late 2007) I only found out about this group by 
accident when I spotted the earlier EPPbis documents in the "new drafts" 
RSS feed.

kind regards,

Ray

---

From: "Hollenbeck, Scott" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 08:04:51 -0500

True, but it doesn't take much work to find out that there is work in
progress.  New draft announcements are part of the process.  There are
also multiple links to both current and old work on the IETF web site
for anyone who takes the time to look:
 
Concluded working groups:
http://www.ietf.org/wg/concluded/
 
Working group mailing lists:
http://datatracker.ietf.org/list/wg/
 
Even a google search on "Extensible Provisioning Protocol" will turn up
links to new work done since the working group closed.
 
Scott

________________________________

	From: [email-masked]
[mailto:[email-masked]] 
	Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 7:53 AM
	To: Hollenbeck, Scott
	Cc: Alexey Melnikov; EPP Provreg
	Subject: Re: [ietf-provreg] RE: Last Call:
draft-gould-rfc4310bis (Domain Name System(DNS) Security Extensions
Mapping for the Extensible ProvisioningProtocol

	
	As a relative newbie to the IETF world (and only being employed
in the registry business since late 2007) I only found out about this
group by accident when I spotted the earlier EPPbis documents in the
"new drafts" RSS feed. 
	
	kind regards, 
	
	Ray

---

From: Eric Brunner-Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Feb 2010 08:33:55 -0500

OK. So we need to:

(a) remind the lawyers who clutter up the Registry Stakeholder Group 
(RySG) that they need to know to tell the technical people (who should 
form the registry operator sharpened stakes and pitchforks group) that 
technical work (on EPP) takes place on ietf-provreg, please bring your 
extensions and other brain-damage or stay home,

(b) remind the lawyers who clutter up the Registrar Stakeholder Group 
(RSG) that technical work (on EPP) takes place on ietf-provreg, and if 
they intend to sell anything other than VGRS inventory, or stay afloat 
in a sea of registry-specific extensions and other brain-damage, its 
come or stay home,

(c) inform the civil administrators who clutter up the CNSO similar to 
(a), above, rinse and repeat for the sharpened stakes and pitchforks 
group, unencumbered by the "contract" problem,

and

(d) inform the ccTLD tech people who attend occasionally, or 
regularly, the Monday ccTLD Tech Day at ICANN meetings that technical 
work (on EPP) takes place on ietf-provreg, again, rinse and repeat for 
the sharpened stakes and pitchforks group.

That covers the ICANN g&c space. Informing the CNNIC c&g's would be 
useful as it is a bother that .cn-ascii and .cn-idn are at different 
pre-1.0 revs. It is their choice, but spec-sync could benefit them as 
well as everyone else benefited by spec-sync.

Are there other registrars, and other registries, which use, or plan 
to use, EPP? Possibly. This gets more real when we look at another XML 
syntax specified data transport issue, the escrow, as escrow is a 
general interest to zone operators, not merely TLD zone operators.

The reason for techies to have "sharpened stakes and pitchforks" is 
that the really important technical and operational issues do not fall 
into the mutually exclusive "have a contract or have a MoU (or less) 
with ICANN" baskets, and specification and/or implementation drift 
caused by differences in legal regimes has no technical necessity 
justification.

Eric

---

From: Edward Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 10:11:26 -0500

(Left off the ietf general list)

>can't have done any more to let people know what's been going on.

Having once been one of the co-chairs of Provreg I want to try to 
explain the situation.  Both Bernie and Scott are right, but that 
doesn't mean there isn't a gap.

What happened is that the PROVREG WG operated during a time when the 
domain name registration function, as well as all other registration 
functions, were understood by just a small community and within a 
constrained framework.  The WG achieved its goal, in 2003 or so 
stopped meeting (it was closed officially once the RFCs were 
published, months later).  The mailing list has remained open since 
then, with little or no publicity beyond those active on it.  I 
wouldn't expect that a responsible party would even know of the list 
if they hadn't been there to participate in the WG.

Since the closing of the WG the documents defining EPP have been 
advanced to Full Standard using the mailing list as the basis for 
communication.  While this meets with IETF processes standards, the 
registration industry/community grew both in population[0] and in 
scope[1] at the same time and this did not feed into the IETF 
process.  Members of this growth had no formal way to know of the 
mailing list as it had no WG to "cover" it, had no chairs or 
advocates to promote it in appropriate venues (like CENTR Tech).

>I know I can't have done any more to let people know what's been going on.

And that's certainly true, but that doesn't mean the message got out 
far enough.

In the past few weeks, recognizing this and a backlog of technical 
issues[2] facing registries, registrars, and all others involved in 
Internet Registration, there has been discussion on the mailing list 
to apply for a new WG (well, first a BoF, etc.).  From the messages 
posted, it appears that an effort to apply for a BoF will proceed, 
hopefully in time for IETF 78 "Maastricht" (as the deadline for IETF 
77 "Disneyland" has passed).

[0] Back then there were 3 or 4 registries and a few registrars; 
according to a stat uttered at .ORG's Public Forum last week, there 
are 14 "major" registry operators now, hundreds of registrars just 
within the ICANN definition, and many other entities involved in 
domain name registration.

[1] The role of registries are better understood today, more 
realization of the differences and similarities of domain name 
registration and RIR's for example.  While RIR's did not actively 
participate in the PROVREG WG, then did participate in CRISP, as one 
sign of growing awareness.

[2] Such as submission of DNSSEC keys (SEP/KSK) into registries not 
using EPP's DNSSEC extension (4310) now defined at PS; and how 
non-EPP client DNS operators send the keys.
-- 
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Edward Lewis
NeuStar                    You can leave a voice message at +1-571-434-5468

As with IPv6, the problem with the deployment of frictionless surfaces is
that they're not getting traction.
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From: Jaap Akkerhuis <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:11:11 +0100

As the other ex-co-chair I don't have a lot to add to Ed's comments.
I too do see some momentum growing to revive work on EPP in the
IETF.

The ietf-provreg mail list itself is as official as non-WG lists
come. It is listed on the non-WG ietf mail lists pages and I have
maintained it since the closing of the WG, occasionally adapting
it to requests of the secretariat. Currently there are 242 subscribers
to the list (and several hundred spam messages a day).

	jaap

---

From: Bernie Hoeneisen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 12:22:18 +0100 (CET)

Hi Scott, Ed, Jaap et al.

Thank you all for your views and feedback on this discussion.

Concerning the observation I brought to attention, Ed's email hits the 
nail on the head (copied right below):

On Mon, 1 Feb 2010, Edward Lewis wrote:

> Since the closing of the WG the documents defining EPP have been advanced to 
> Full Standard using the mailing list as the basis for communication.  While 
> this meets with IETF processes standards, the registration industry/community 
> grew both in population[0] and in scope[1] at the same time and this did not 
> feed into the IETF process.  Members of this growth had no formal way to know 
> of the mailing list as it had no WG to "cover" it, had no chairs or advocates 
> to promote it in appropriate venues (like CENTR Tech).

Have a nice day!

cheers,
  Bernie

--

http://ucom.ch/
Tech Consulting for Internet Standardization
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