Dear colleagues,
Here is the IAB report to the community about our activities, submitted so that you can prepare topics you might want to discuss during the upcoming open mic time. Of course, if you have issues you want to discuss by email, feel free to send your comments to architecture-discuss@xxxxxxx (our public discussion list) or iab@xxxxxxx (to reach just the IAB).
The IAB has a few chartered roles. It confirms the appointments to the IESG, performs standards process oversight, and handles appeals. It also performs architectural oversight (including appointing the IRTF Chair), appoints the RFC series editor and oversight committee, manages the IETF's relationship with IANA, and handles liaisons and appointments both to ISOC and to other organizations.
Here's what the IAB has been doing since our last report; more detail on many of the topics is available at https://www.iab.org.
First, I’m happy to note that there were no appeals during this period.
Second, I wish to highlight a couple of changes in IAB meeting practice. The agendas for IAB teleconferences are now publicly posted in advance of the meetings. The teleconferences themselves are also now open to observers, except for sections which deal with personnel matters or similarly sensitive issues. Call-in information is available as part of the agenda.
As part of its appointments role, the IAB has filled a number of positions since our last report. Tim Wicinski was appointed to the Community Coordination Group, which advises the IETF Trust. Ole Jacobsen was re-appointed to the ICANN NomCom, which selects candidates for the ICANN Board. The IAB also updated the membership of the RFC Series Oversight Committee; Sarah Banks, Tony Hansen, Adam Roach, and Peter Saint-Andre were appointed to serve, along with IAB members Robert Sparks and Christian Huitema.
There are also a number of positions for which the IAB is either currently seeking volunteers or for which calls will go out shortly. The IAB is currently soliciting volunteers for the ICANN TLG; you can see that call for volunteers on the IAB web site. The IAB is looking for new members for the the IAB Plenary Planning Program. The IAB is also seeking nominations for IRTF Chair; Allison Mankin, the current Chair, has indicated that she will be stepping down after completing this term.
We will also be issuing a call for volunteers to serve on the Internet Society’s Board of Trustees. As the Trustees are meeting in Bangkok after IETF 103 there will be several members of the Board attending the IETF. If you are interested in the work of the board, please reach out to the IAB or one of the current Trustees.
DOCUMENTS
You can always find the documents the IAB has adopted and is working on at https://datatracker.ietf.org/stream/iab.
Two RFCs have been published since the last report:
RFC 8477 Report from the Internet of Things (IoT) Semantic Interoperability (IOTSI) Workshop 2016
RFC 8462 Report from the IAB Workshop on Managing Radio Networks in an Encrypted World (MaRNEW)
Given both the time it takes to produce workshop reports in RFC form and the occasional mismatch between the style of the workshop and the archival format of the RFCs, the IAB is now considering whether it would be useful to allow workshop organizers to consider other publication forms. A web page maintained by the IAB on its own site, linked to the original call for participation, is one form under consideration. The IAB is interested in feedback on this approach and would welcome any thoughts on it; we expect discussion to take place on architecture-discuss@xxxxxxx.
The IAB also provided comments in response to Australia’s proposed Assistance and Access Bill. While it is unusual for the IAB to comment on legislation, the IAB chose to do so in this case because of the potential impact on the Internet trust model and the risk of fragmentation if multiple jurisdictions implemented similar legislation.
PROGRAMS
The IAB organizes its work, for the most part, into programs. There are basically two classes: management programs and architectural programs. The former are how we handle the oversight of various things, and the latter are where we do architectural work. The former are expected to last as long as the IAB continues to have that oversight function; the latter last until the IAB has come to a conclusion on the relevant group of topics or has decided that the topic needs to be reframed. Programs are listed at https://www.iab.org/activities/programs/. As a general rule, each architectural program has a public mailing list, as well as a member-specific list. For subscription instructions, see https://www.iab.org/iab-mailing-lists/.
As noted above, the Plenary Planning Program is seeking volunteers; that group will tackle not just identifying good topics and speakers but also potentially re-thinking the technical plenary approach more generally.
WORKSHOPS
The IAB has two workshops in preparation, and we anticipate sending the calls for participation for both at or shortly after IETF 103. The first, Exploring Synergy between Content Aggregation and the Publisher Ecosystem, is a joint workshop with the W3C TAG focused on how web packaging technologies change the distribution of content on the Internet and the impact of that change on other parts of the ecosystem. The second, tentatively called Current Internet Perception and Evolution, explores the relationship between consumer/user perceptions of the Internet and concentration of providers or asymmetry. We are seeking to better understand the nature of this asymmetry and what new technical standards (if any) could do to mitigate the risks it represents.
Respectfully submitted,
Ted Hardie
for the IAB
