The IESG has spent considerable time discussing how we can improve our ability to charter new work as soon as it’s ready and ensure proposals have the resources needed for success. We want to share our expectations about BOF requests and new work proposals with the community because we are interested in feedback.
We ask for feedback, either on the IETF Discussion List (so, replies to this note are fine), or optionally, to the IESG at iesg@xxxxxxxx. We would like to put this in place soon after IETF 100.
We would like to see earlier notice about proposals for new work, and more attention to specific work products in proposals.
*** Earlier notice to ADs about proposals for new work to enable better support and improving chances of success
We ask that proponents provide BOF requests and proposals for new work as early as possible so that your area directors can begin evaluating these requests long before our coordination call with the IAB each IETF meeting cycle.
Earlier notice about new work proposals will give area directors more time to provide direction, to involve other IETF participants with relevant backgrounds and related interests, and to confirm whether a BOF would be required to consider a proposal for new work.
Earlier notice about new work proposals will also give area directors more time to request that the IAB provide BOF shepherds to help improve BOF requests, when that is appropriate, and more time for BOF shepherds to help to improve the BOF proposal.
The IAB's expectations are described in their statement on "IAB Member Roles in Evaluating New Work Proposals"[1].
*** More focus on specific work products in new work proposals
The IESG has received some BOF requests that describe interesting problems at considerable length but do not clearly identify what the BOF proponents want the IETF to do. When that happens, we cannot approve a BOF intended to form a working group.
In some cases, area directors might approve a non-WG-forming BOF to tease out the details of the BOF proposal, but often that isn’t the best way forward. However, we also want to put ideas in front of the IETF community early in the process, in order to gauge community interest and feasibility.
The BOF Wiki at https://trac.tools.ietf.org/bof/trac/wiki, where we collect BOF requests for each upcoming IETF meeting cycle, will be using this template:
- Long name and abbreviation
- Description, including whether the BoF is intended to form a WG or not
- The responsible Area Director (AD)
- Suggested BoF Chairs (or the ADs as placeholders)
- Number of people expected to attend
- Length of session (1, 1.5, 2, or 2.5 hours)
- Conflicts to avoid (whole Areas and/or WGs)
- Links to the mailing list, draft charter if any, relevant Internet-Drafts, etc.
Proponents are encouraged to add new entries in the BoF wiki even if they don't have all information that the template is asking for yet. The entry can be modified until the Cut-off date for BOF proposal requests to Area Directors, which is available from https://ietf.org/meeting/important-dates.html.
When writing the description, the IESG strongly encourages BOF proponents to focus on the work that would be reflected in an approved working group charter. What we are looking for is:
- What protocols or practices already exist in this space?
- What modifications are required for the purpose described in the BOF request?
- What entirely new protocols or practices must be developed?
We prefer that BOF proponents do this mapping, and gap analysis, rather than relying on the IESG, the IAB, and the broader community. That will help us make better decisions more quickly about approving BOFs, and to charter new work more quickly, that produces solutions more quickly. As we said in "Support Documents in IETF Working Groups" [2],
"In order to speed up the time period from idea to running code, the IESG supports working groups that commence solution work early in the working group timeline, and do not wait for completion and publication of the support documents. When the problem scope is well understood and agreed upon, charters focused on solutions work are extremely efficient."
Spencer Dawkins, for the IESG
[2] https://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/support-documents-in-ietf-wgs.html