Subject: RE: [SIP] Proposal for organizing WG efforts

From: "Roy, Radhika R, ALCOO" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 14:45:27 -0500

Hi, Dean:

The proposal sounds good to me.

I like to get a little more clarifications. Let us take an example. 

If we start a work in SIPPING WG and find that there needs to an extension
in SIP, should we then bring back that discussion in the SIP WG?

In another example, we have started an effort in SIP-AAA group discussion.
Will that discussion be a part of the SIPPING WG?

Best regards,
Radhika R. Roy
AT&T

-----Original Message-----
From: Dean Willis [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2001 11:39 AM
To: IETF SIP (E-mail)
Subject: [SIP] Proposal for ogranizing WG efforts

The WG chairs and the ADs were talking this morning about how to make the
working group more effective.One idea that came up sounds interesting, and
I'd like to share it with you.

There are really two sorts of tasks that happen in the WG today:

1) Defining the protocol: SIP and extensions to SIP using its extension
mechanisms.

2) Describing the mechanisms and requirements of doing useful things with
SIP.

Many of the discussions over the past years have started as
application-specific extensions that have pointed toward general-purpose
reusable solutions. For example, Message Waiting Indicator proposals led to
our understanding of the general usefulness of Subscribe/Notify (Events)
mechanisms. We sometimes didn't notice the generalizability of a mechanism
until several iterations into implementation discussions (Refer). We've
started to learn to differentiate our drafts between protocol specifics and
usage rationales. Unfortunately, sometimes the "how could we" discussions
have distracted from the immediate goals of completing the base
specifications. Even the core protocol draft has drawn criticism for
intermixing usage and specification, and the authors have proposed a rewrite
to separate those components.

So here's the idea: What if we were to split the SIP WG into two pieces?
Maybe two WGs?

The first part would handle the actual protocol specifications -- things
like 2543bis, and would deal with new methods, new headers, new response
codes, and other things in response to requirements generated by the second
part. Hard standards-track stuff, tightly controlled charter.

The second part would deal with using SIP, primarily from a
rationale-and-requirements perspective. This would include call flows,
application of SIP mechanisms (like using Events for Message Waiting), and
with things like RFCs to register new  MIME types and DHCP options and the
like. I believe Allison suggested calling such a group the "SIPPING" effort.
Such a group would of course do a lot of discussios and would be likely to
generate several informational  and BCP track documents as well as
standards-track documents where appropriate.

This might let us get a little more clarity in the discussions and
discipline in the process -- and separate some of the topics on the rather
busy mailing list.

So, what do you think?

--
Dean Willis
SIP WG CoChair

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_______________________________________________
This list is for continuing development of the SIP protocol.
The sip-implementor's list is the place to discuss implementation,
and to receive advice on understanding existing sip.
To subscribe to it, send mail to 
[email-masked] with "subscribe" in the body.

---

From: "Dean Willis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 14:08:21 -0600

I would say that work started in SIPPING might lead to publication of
requirements and "umbrella" or "framework" documents that would indicate
(perhaps indirectly) the need for a specific extension to SIP. The
requirements would then be referred from SIPPING to SIP, and teh SIP group
would hash out the extension.

AAA work might be a special case. My guess is that the same model could
apply -- requirements work would be done in SIPPING, and any changes or
extensions needed to SIP might be in SIP.

--
Dean

----- Original Message -----
From: "Roy, Radhika R, ALCOO" <[email-masked]>
To: "Dean Willis" <[email-masked]>; "IETF SIP (E-mail)"
<[email-masked]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2001 1:45 PM
Subject: RE: [SIP] Proposal for organizing WG efforts