Subject: Software tools for IETF -- suggestions?

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 00:02:42 +0200

(This is a copy of a posting made to the [email-masked] mailing list
 - I think that wgchairs may have particularly interesting tool
 suggestions, so don't want you to miss it :-)  /Henrik)

IETFers,

Do you have ideas for software tools that would make your IETF work
easier? Do you have feedback about current IETF automation efforts?

As part of the overall effort to improve IETF operations and structure,
a Tools team has been chartered to develop requirements for additional
and revised electronic tools to aid in the IETF operations.

The charter of the Tools team (found at the IETF Tools web site,
http://tools.ietf.org/) focuses initially on tools to improve the
interface between IETF administration and the broader community; but 
will also look at tools to aid in the operation of individual working
groups and the tasks of standards development.

The Tools team is soliciting new tool suggestions and general comments,
to be refined into a series of tool specifications.  Tool specifications
will then be used to implement or adopt software for IETF.

The first item on Tools team list is the automation of draft submission
to allow for quick and painless validation and posting of Internet-Drafts. 
The first document describing the new draft submission tool is available at:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-tools-draft-submission-00.txt

What should we work on next? Please visit the list of possible future
tools and send us additions as well as priority preferences:
http://tools.ietf.org/wiki/ToolSuggestions

Please send all Tools-related feedback to [email-masked], a
newly formed mailing list; do this also if you add information to the
wiki pages.  Subscription instructions:
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tools-discuss

--------

The members of the tools team are:

  * Alex Rousskov
  * Bill Fenner
  * Larry Masinter
  * Stanislav Shalunov
  * Henrik Levkowetz (chair)

Schedule:

  The group will initially focus on additional tools for use in the
  interface between the IETF administration and the broader IETF
  community.  The first draft of a set of requirements for an 
  Internet-Drafts Submission Tool has been posted, and feedback is
  welcome.

  Other administrative tools are expected to be specified over the next
  six months. We will put together a list and priority schedule within
  that time frame.

  The Tools team may also conduct polls within the community for input on
  priorities, requirements, and feedback on currently deployed tools.

  After the initial focus on administrative tools, the group will turn
  its attention to tools of use for aiding working groups, authors and
  other parts of the IETF community.

--------

	Regards,

		Henrik

---

From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 10:44:29 -0700

I've been working on a software tool for the IETF to improve  
collaboration (particularly within WGs) and more ad-hoc publication  
processes, and I think it's now ready to unveil.

The site is <http://ietf.cse.ucsc.edu/>.  It's a WebDAV server, so any  
path on the server, e.g. <http://ietf.cse.ucsc.edu/caldav/> offers  
support for WebDAV methods.  The only exception is the path  
<http://ietf.cse.ucsc.edu/xythoswfs/webui/>, which is the path to a  
Web-based GUI that allows access to both the basic WebDAV functionality  
and some advanced, non-standard features offered by the server  
software.

The server software is Xythos WebFile Server, provided free for this  
site by Xythos Software, Inc.  <www.xythos.com>.  The software supports  
RFC2518 (WebDAV) including locking, RFC3253 (versioning), RFC3744  
(access control) and more. The site hosting is free from UCSC.  (The  
machine hardware was purchased by me, so I'd be happy to take donations  
until that cost is somewhat defrayed.)

Currently I'm managing site administration, which means I am setting up  
accounts and creating directories.  I am happy to create accounts and  
directories for WG chairs, editors, secretaries, and other IETF-related  
work efforts.

What can you do with a directory and some accounts on this server???
  - In the http://ietf.cse.ucsc.edu/caldav directory, I and my  
co-authors alternately work on a draft -- one of us can lock it and  
edit it and post changes back to the server.  We turned versioning on  
so we can see who changed it, and when, and download different versions  
to compare them (e.g. do a diff).
  - Publish presentations before or after meetings, get comments on them  
(check out the comments feature on the file's information page)
  - Keep your own archive of supporting material (e.g. meeting notes).
  - Maintain simple issues lists (e.g. in a spreadsheet) and delegate  
editing the issues list
  - Store and make public (or private) interop results, test suites, etc
  - Probably much more, but I'm not going to exhaustively list it.

Thanks to Marshall Rose, Jim Whitehead and Sung Kim for their help  
getting this project off the ground.  Comments welcome.

Lisa

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 20:36:22 +0200

Hi Lisa,

    This looks interesting!  I'll send this on to the tools team, too.
The team has started looking a bit on tools of this kind, although we're
still focused on the I-D submission tool for the secretariat.  I hope
people try this out, so we can get some experience and feedback on what
kind of features are most useful in a WG collaboration tool.

Thanks for setting up and providing this :-) 

	Henrik

Lisa Dusseault wrote:

> and some advanced, non-standard features offered by the server  software.
>