Subject: [rfc-i] Short report: third virtual interim meeting, RFC Editor Model process discussion

From: Heather Flanagan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 10:47:31 -0700

Hola a todos!

The third and final virtual interim meeting on the topic of the RFC Editor Model process was held last week. The slides (slightly revised from the first two meetings) and a link the recording are available off the RSE wiki:

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rse/wiki/doku.php?id=interim <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rse/wiki/doku.php?id=interim>

These calls have been purely to discuss process around changes to the RFC Editor model. Specifically:
Who manages the community discussion?
Who needs to be invited to the table?
Who calls consensus?
Six individuals attended this call (as compared to about twenty-four on the first, and twelve on the second). The discussion was an interesting complement to the discussion on the first two calls.

Here is a synthesis of what I heard from the participants on this call:

——

While there was no agreement on whether or not the group that drives the discussion and consensus needs to be an entirely new group outside the existing leadership structure, there was consensus that some IAB involvement was critical. One suggestion was to bring in past IAB and/or IETF chairs as core membership to the group, and that the group must look to the long-term structure of the RFC Editor (as opposed to looking at short-term, tactical matters).

In terms of what needs to be decided for the long-term (where ‘long-term’ was defined as 6-8 years), decisions that will need to be made include: business (funding), administration (hiring/firing) as well as more about publishing docs (who gets to say no to publishing something). There will be a role for many of the existing groups (e.g., LLC Board, since they hold contracts). The model must be clear around when the RSE can be overridden (and when they can’t be). The model cannot be designed around one individual or entity, which means the roles themselves has to be more clearly described. 

——

The final meeting in this particular series is the face-to-face meeting at IETF 106. This is scheduled for Tuesday morning (Singapore time) during the side meetings/open time window. See the IETF 106 agenda <https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/106/agenda.html> for details. I will endeavor to have an Internet-Draft published before the deadline (4 November 2019) that will serve as the core discussion point for the meeting in Singapore.

Many thanks to all who joined the calls, and please let me know if you have any questions!

Heather Flanagan, 
RSE

_______________________________________________
rfc-interest mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www.rfc-editor.org/mailman/listinfo/rfc-interest