Subject: [apps-discuss] Apps Area WG (APPSAWG)

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 10:42:48 +0100

Greetings,

Peter and I talked about this again and we would like to followup on the 
discussion in Maastricht about creating an Application Area working 
group for helping with important documents which don't fit in other 
existing working groups.

Peter and I received some (private) positive feedback before the
Maastricht IETF. The discussion during the Apps Area meeting was a bit
controversial.

We've heard people saying that this is solving a wrong problem. We've
heard comments like "you guys are overworked, but the new WG is not the 
fix for that". We've heard people voicing their concern about possible 
abuse of the WG. We've heard people saying that this is a good 
experiment to try and the community wouldn't know for sure if this is a 
good idea or not until we try.

I probably didn't sound very convincing during the Apps Area meeting,
but I got impression that during one-on-one followup discussions with
people who objected (or raised concerns), I was able to change their
opinion. In particular I showed multiple examples of documents that 
would have benefited from being a product of such working group.

So having heard all arguments and after thinking more about this, Peter 
and I are still thinking that forming such WG is a good idea. We are 
also thinking that based on raised concern it would be a good idea to 
put a specific restriction on how long this WG would exist, before it 
gets closed, or has to be rechartered.

Thanks,
Peter and Alexey, as Apps ADs.

P.S. I am likely to add the proposed WG Charter (largely unchanged from 
what I've sent out before Maastricht, but I will repost) to IESG agenda 
for September 23rd. *If* IESG is happy with initial review, this will go 
out for external review. I am then going on holidays for 3 weeks. This 
will give people enough extra time to comment/nit pick on the Charter.

If this WG is going to be created, I would personally prefer to create 
it before Beijing. I don't expect that it will actually need a meeting 
in Beijing.

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 22:51:12 +1000

Alexey,

Has any consideration been giving to streaming different areas of general interest into separate WGs? E.g., Mail-related work has little to do with Web stuff (although there are common roots). 

Some of my discomfort with it would be removed if it were more of a "hey, let's work on THIS general problem area" than a kitchen-sink approach.

Just a thought,

On 17/09/2010, at 7:42 PM, Alexey Melnikov wrote:

> Greetings,
> 
> Peter and I talked about this again and we would like to followup on the discussion in Maastricht about creating an Application Area working group for helping with important documents which don't fit in other existing working groups.
> 
> heard comments like "you guys are overworked, but the new WG is not the fix for that". We've heard people voicing their concern about possible abuse of the WG. We've heard people saying that this is a good experiment to try and the community wouldn't know for sure if this is a good idea or not until we try.
> 
> opinion. In particular I showed multiple examples of documents that would have benefited from being a product of such working group.
> 
> So having heard all arguments and after thinking more about this, Peter and I are still thinking that forming such WG is a good idea. We are also thinking that based on raised concern it would be a good idea to put a specific restriction on how long this WG would exist, before it gets closed, or has to be rechartered.
> 
> Thanks,
> P.S. I am likely to add the proposed WG Charter (largely unchanged from what I've sent out before Maastricht, but I will repost) to IESG agenda for September 23rd. *If* IESG is happy with initial review, this will go out for external review. I am then going on holidays for 3 weeks. This will give people enough extra time to comment/nit pick on the Charter.
> 
> If this WG is going to be created, I would personally prefer to create it before Beijing. I don't expect that it will actually need a meeting in Beijing.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> apps-discuss mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/apps-discuss

--
Mark Nottingham     http://www.mnot.net/

---

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:10:42 +0100

>Alexey,
Mark,

>Has any consideration been giving to streaming different areas of general interest into separate WGs? E.g., Mail-related work has little to do with Web stuff (although there are common roots). 
Of course. This is not supposed to replace forwarding documents to 
existing WGs or creation of new ones.

---

From: Claudio Allocchio <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:12:45 +0200 (CEST)

On Fri, 17 Sep 2010, Mark Nottingham wrote:

> Alexey,
>
> Has any consideration been giving to streaming different areas of 
> general interest into separate WGs? E.g., Mail-related work has little 
> to do with Web stuff (although there are common roots).

true... hence my further question: how do you think to structure the 
potential membership of this WG? just include anybody wiling to contribute 
(as usual), asking at least a few "more experts" in each area (taken from 
the Apps-review team?) to join... ?

an "open discussion" in a WG has always made better a draft, and this is 
missing for individual submissions, true... but we need a WG which is 
capable of giving positive inputs. But in general I agree that the WS 
idea is good.

  > On 17/09/2010, at 7:42 PM, Alexey 
Melnikov wrote: >
>> If this WG is going to be created, I would personally prefer to create it before Beijing. I don't expect that it will actually need a meeting in Beijing.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Claudio Allocchio             G   A   R   R          [email-masked]
                         Senior Technical Officer
tel: +39 040 3758523      Italian Academic and       G=Claudio; S=Allocchio;
fax: +39 040 3758565        Research Network         P=garr; A=garr; C=it;

            PGP Key: http://www.cert.garr.it/PGP/keys.php3#ca

---

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:15:37 +0100

Alexey Melnikov wrote:

>> general interest into separate WGs? E.g., Mail-related work has 
>> little to do with Web stuff (although there are common roots).  
>

I will add some text to the proposed Charter to clarify that.

>> Some of my discomfort with it would be removed if it were more of a 
>> "hey, let's work on THIS general problem area" than a kitchen-sink 
>> approach.
>>
>> Just a thought, 
>

---

From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 13:32:15 -0400

> P.S. I am likely to add the proposed WG Charter (largely unchanged from what
> I've sent out before Maastricht, but I will repost) to IESG agenda for
> September 23rd.

That doesn't give us much time to review it... can you repost it here
right away?

> If this WG is going to be created, I would personally prefer to create it
> before Beijing. I don't expect that it will actually need a meeting in
> Beijing.

On the contrary, I would expect it to meet at every IETF meeting,
*replacing* (or joining) the current apparea general session.  As time
goes on, we can see how much time the combined functions of this WG
and the apparea session need, and decide whether we should split
anything out.  But keeping that 2.5-hour monday morning session as the
only app-area plenary will help avoid the increased schedule conflicts
that some (including I) worry about.

Barry

---

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 11:42:13 -0600

> that some (including I) worry about.

That seems like the right approach to me.

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

---

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 20:18:11 +0100

Barry Leiba wrote:

>That doesn't give us much time to review it...
>
As I said in my earlier message, people will have about 4 weeks to 
review this while I am on holidays.

>can you repost it here
Ok, here is the latest proposal:

-----------------
Applications Area Working Group (APPSAWG)

The Applications Area sometimes receives proposals for the development
of specifications dealing with application-related topics that are not
in scope for an existing working group and do not justify the formation
of a new working group.

The Applications Area Working Group (APPSAWG) can serve as a forum for such
work in the IETF.  The APPSAWG accepts work items in accordance with the
consensus of the Working Group and the best judgment of the Applications 
Area
Directors, who are responsible for updating the working group milestones
as needed.  The working group meets if there are active proposals that
require intensive discussion.

Work items that are appropriate for the APPSAWG mostly fall under the
following topics:

(A) Well-defined security issues that are relevant to multiple
application technologies (e.g., draft-saintandre-tls-server-id-check).

(B) Small-scale additions to the protocol stack for HTTP and other
application technologies, mostly related to service discovery and
meta-data (e.g., RFC 5785, draft-nottingham-http-link-header, and
draft-hammer-hostmeta).

(C) Selected other work items addressing topics that historically fall
within the Applications Area, such as calendaring, date and time
formats, HTTP, internationalization, language tags, MIME, URIs and XML.

When considering whether to accept a proposed work item, the APPSAWG and
the Applications Area Directors shall take into account the following
factors, among others:

(1) Whether the WG has consensus on the suitability, importance, and
projected quality of the proposed work item.

(2) Whether there is core team of WG participants with sufficient energy
and expertise to advance the proposed work item according to the proposed
schedule.

(3) Whether there are enough WG participants who are willing to review
the work produced by the document authors or editors.

(4) Whether the Area Directors judge that wider input is needed before
accepting the proposed work item (e.g., from the IESG, IAB, or another
standards development organization).

(5) There is no existing related Working Group that is willing to recharter
to take on this work, and the document doesn't justify the formation
of a new working group.
-----------------

>*replacing* (or joining) the current apparea general session.
>
I think this is an implementation detail.
For now I don't know if the WG-to-be will have any documents with 
milestones before Beijing, but of course this can change.

But anyway, yes, this is fine with me as well.

>As time

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2010 09:51:37 -0700

>Ok, here is the latest proposal:

Is it the Application Area or the Area Directors that receives the 
proposals (see Individual submissions)?

>consensus of the Working Group and the best judgment of the Applications Area

If this is to be a working group, I would prefer if the acceptance 
does not require both consensus and the best judgement of the 
Application Area Directors.  The way around that would be for the 
Application Area Director to determine whether the working group 
should consider the draft.  The consensus is then gauged after that.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2010 17:55:02 +0100

> proposals (see Individual submissions)?

Area Directors. If you think the distinction is important in the 
Charter, I can change that.

> should consider the draft.  The consensus is then gauged after that.

Fine with me.

Part of the reasons for the text is to allow ideas for new documents to 
work on to be initiated from the WG, not just from ADs themselves.

---

From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2010 16:47:00 -0400

I'm probably stating the obvious, but the Appsarea meeting typically 
doesn't use the full 2.5 hour slot it's normally allocated, so the 
APPSAWG could easily join in the fun within the same time slot. I also 
think it's already the proper mix of people.

     Tony Hansen
     [email-masked]

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2010 16:33:02 -0700

Hi Alexey,
>Charter, I can change that.

It's more of a nit.  I am fine with either.

>Fine with me.
>
>Part of the reasons for the text is to allow ideas for new documents 
>to work on to be initiated from the WG, not just from ADs themselves.

It may seem far-fetched but it would be better to avoid situations 
where the consensus of the working group is at odds with best 
judgment of the Applications Area Directors.  There are two options:

  1. The Application Area Director determines whether the work should 
be submitted to the working group for consideration.

  2. The author of the draft asks the working group to consider 
taking on the work.

As this is to be a working group, the second option may be 
easier.  In practice, the  Applications Area Directors should be able 
to influence the outcome.  I am fine with the first option too.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2010 16:40:37 -0700

At 4:33 PM -0700 9/20/10, SM wrote:
>>Area Directors. If you think the distinction is important in the Charter, I can change that.
>
>>Part of the reasons for the text is to allow ideas for new documents to work on to be initiated from the WG, not just from ADs themselves.
>
>It may seem far-fetched but it would be better to avoid situations where the consensus of the working group is at odds with best judgment of the Applications Area Directors.  There are two options:
>
> 1. The Application Area Director determines whether the work should be submitted to the working group for consideration.
>
> 2. The author of the draft asks the working group to consider taking on the work.
>
>As this is to be a working group, the second option may be easier.  In practice, the  Applications Area Directors should be able to influence the outcome.  I am fine with the first option too.

The ADs always have the final say (and often the initial say) in the work taken up by any WG, not just an area-wide WG. Different ADs act on this in different ways in different situations. It might be better not to instatiate this interaction in the WG charter, just as it is not included in (any?) other WG charters.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium