The IESG proposes to reorganize the areas by merging the web-related working groups in ART with most of the transport area to create a new area called either “Web and Application Transport” (WAT) or “Transport and Web Applications” (TWA), effective at IETF 119. The IESG invites community comment on this change.
The Transport area (TSV) is the smallest area in terms of working groups. More importantly, it has been extremely difficult to find candidates for the two Transport AD positions for many years. Although the Transport Area could be managed by one AD, the IESG strongly feels that having a partner is very important for vacation coverage, managing working groups, handling conflicts of interest, and so on.
Meanwhile, the Applications and Real Time (ART) area has been growing. The IESG has already requested a third AD position for ART to be seated by the NomCom in 2024. One of these three ART ADs would move to the new area, together with one AD from TSV. Concurrently eliminating a position prevents growth in the overall size of the IESG.
Similar to the OPS area, this new area would have two centers of gravity (transport layer and web applications), so that one AD would have transport expertise and the other would have HTTP expertise. Thematically, this new area would have cohesion around traditional Transport subjects and ART protocols that are often used as transports (especially HTTP). These groups tend to have significant attendance overlaps.
Affected Working Groups
The following working groups would move outside both ART and the new area:
ALTO to OPS
DTN to INT
IPPM to OPS
SCIM to SEC
TIGRESS to SEC
The new area would consist of the following working groups:
AVTCORE
CDNI
CCWG
CORE
HTTPAPI
HTTPBIS
MASQUE
MOQ
NFSV4
QUIC
RTCWEB
TAPS
TCPM
TSVAREA (to be renamed in accordance with the new area and an updated description/purpose)
TSVWG (this may require a minor recharter, but would retain the same competencies)
WEBTRANS
All other ART working groups would remain in place.
The Transport Area Review Team (TSVART) would not change its purpose, scope, or operations. The Transport-focused AD would have primary responsibility for managing this team. The HTTP Directorate would also remain as-is and would be overseen by the HTTP-oriented AD of the new area. Details about ARTART are TBD.
Transition Plan
The IESG would request that NomCom not fill the open TSV AD position currently occupied by Martin Duke. Francesca Palombini and Zahed Sarker would be the initial ADs for the new area.
The IESG would also request that one of the two ART openings be filled for only a one-year term, so as to stagger future ART AD terms.
The new area’s AD terms would initially also end at the same time. In the 2024-2025 NomCom cycle, the IESG would request that the NomCom fill two slots, one with transport expertise and one with HTTP expertise, either of which could be a one-year term (but not both).
Next Steps
Please submit any comments on this plan, including the name/acronym to iesg@xxxxxxxx no later than 20 Sep 2023 (anywhere on Earth).
Concurrently, the IESG will work on updated job descriptions to be transmitted to the NomCom. It anticipates this update will be relatively minor.
