Subject: Early review of the RFC Format documents welcome

From: IAB Executive Administrative Manager <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2016 10:47:38 -0800

As Jari notes below, the IAB will be issuing a call for community review 
of a set of drafts that detail the evolution of the RFC format. We 
expect that call to occur within the next few weeks. New revisions of 
some of the drafts will appear before the call is issued, but the scope 
of the expected changes is not large. The IAB welcomes early review 
comments on any of these documents.

Robert Sparks - RSOC program lead

> On Jan 27, 2016, at 7:31 AM, IETF Chair <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> 
> For background, the RFC Editor and the IAB have been
> working on the evolution  of the RFC format. The IAB
> will be sending a number of documents soon out
> for review. At the same time, the tools team have
> been working on what the new format requires
> from the tools. Both the documents and the tools
> requirements are available from the reading list
> below.
> 
> The IESG has discussed what this all means for
> the IETF documents. The evolution is important
> for the IETF as well, and we look forward to
> being able to use possibilities in the new format.
> 
> The IESG wanted to offer five points:
> 
> 1. Please review the documents and send
> feedback to the rfc-interest list at
> https://www.rfc-editor.org/mailman/listinfo/rfc-interest
> or the authors.
> 
> 2. We would like to see the new format be
> available as the base format for Internet
> Drafts as well, supported by the relevant
> tools, and usable by each of the RFC
> streams as needed. Each stream may
> of course have a policy on what content or
> format features they prefer.
> 
> 3. We expect the RFC Editor, the IAB, and
> the tools team (incl. IAOC support) to make
> the above possible.
> 
> 4. From an IETF stream perspective, we are
> in eager waiting mode. Once the format
> definitions and tools are in place, we
> will (among others) want to try the
> new possibilities in IETF stream
> documents. From a careful engineering
> stand point we would like to start
> small, and gather experience on
> using the new format and tools. There
> will be implications on how we review
> documents, for instance.
> 
> 5. Existing I-D submission using text
> only will likely stay on for a long time
> if not indefinitely, so old methods can
> also be used as needed or desired.
> 
> Comments appreciated, as always.
> 
> Jari Arkko for the IESG
> 
> Reading list:
> 
> 1. The big picture
> 
> - - Flanagan, H., "RFC Format Framework",
>   http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-iab-rfc-framework/
> 
> 2. The underlying vocabulary
> 
> - - Hoffman, P., "The 'XML2RFC' version 3 Vocabulary",
>    https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-iab-xml2rfc/
> 
> 3. The outputs
> 
> - - Hildebrand, J. and P. Hoffman, "HyperText Markup
>   Language Request For Comments Format”,
>   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-iab-html-rfc/
> 
> - - Flanagan, H., "Requirements for Plain Text RFCs”,
>    https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-iab-rfc-plaintext/
> 
> - - Hansen, T., Masinter, L., and M. Hardy, "PDF for
>   an RFC Series Output Document Format”,
>   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hansen-rfc-use-of-pdf/
>   Note that the filename may change to an IAB document soon.
> 
> - - Brownlee, N., "SVG Drawings for RFCs: SVG 1.2 RFC",
>   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-iab-svg-rfc/
> 
> 4. Generalized requirements
> 
> - - Flanagan, H., "The Use of Non-ASCII Characters in RFCs",
>   https://www.ietf.org/id/draft-iab-rfc-nonascii-00.pdf
> 
> - - Flanagan, H., “CSS Requirements for RFCs”,
>   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-iab-rfc-css/
> 
> 5. Workflow and tools (note that the examples draft will
>   not become an RFC, but is necessary for the project)
> 
> - - Hildebrand, J. and P. Hoffman, "RFC v3 Prep Tool Description",
>   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-iab-rfcv3-preptool/
> 
> - - Hoffman, P. and T. Hansen, "Examples of the ‘XML2RFC'
>   Version 2 and 3 Vocabularies”,
>   http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hoffman-rfcexamples/
> 
> 6. The Statements of Work
> 
> - - http://www.nostrum.com/~rjsparks/rfced/
>