Subject: [Cbor] Charter update

From: Jim Schaad <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 May 2019 15:32:48 -0700

Francesca and I have gotten together and cobbled together a revised charter
for the working group.  I have created a github project
https://github.com/cbor-wg/charter for editing of the charter.  We will
monitor the mailing list as well and create pull requests from that, but
feel free to create your own.

Here is a copy

Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR, RFC 7049) extends the
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON, RFC 7159) data interchange format to
include binary data and an extensibility model, using a binary
representation format that is easy to parse correctly. It has been
picked up by a number of IETF efforts (e.g., CORE, ANIMA GRASP) as a
message format.

The CBOR working group will update RFC 7049 to fix verified errata.
Security issues and clarifications may be addressed, but changes to the
document will ensure backward compatibility for popular deployed
codebases. The resulting document will be targeted at becoming a Full
Internet Standard. After that, the CBOR working group will monitor
issues found with the CBOR specification and, if needed, will produce
an updated document.

Similar to the way ABNF (RFC 5234/7405) can be used to describe the set
of valid messages in a text representation, it is useful for
protocol specifications to use a description format for the data in
CBOR-encoded messages. The Concise Data Definition Language (CDDL)
is such a description technique that has already been used in CORE, ANIMA,
CDNI, and efforts outside the IETF.

The first version of CDDL has been published as RFC XXXX.  While this
version has been completed, several new features were raised
during the update process that were not included in this version,
in order not to delay publication, and to allow publication in the
Standards Track.  One example of such a feature is the ability to combine
multiple CDDL files together using a mechanism other that manually
concatenating them together for processing. The working group will
collect these features as well as other features that are raised by users
of CDDL, evaluate their utility and add to a second version of the
specification if warranted.

The working group will evaluate the necessity of providing advice and
guidance for developers using CBOR and CDDL.  It is currently expected
that this would be done using a Wiki of some type.  This work would
not be expected to be published by the IETF.

There are a number of extensions to CBOR types that are either currently
adopted by the working group, other working groups, or individual
submissions.
Additionally, there are expected to be other such documents that will come
to the attention of the working group.  In some cases the working group
expects to adopt and publish these proposals.

The working group will evaluate and place proposals in one of the following
categories using a dispatch like process:

* General purpose extensions that are expected to have broad usage:  The
  working group will normally adopt and publish such proposals.  Examples of
  proposals in this category are CBOR Sequence (draft-bormann-cbor-sequence)
  and Error Indications (draft-richter-cbor-error-tag).

* Internet wide specific purpose extensions:  The working group may decide
  to adopt these proposals, but typically it would just provide input and
  recommend that they be published either as an Independent Submission
  or by a different working group.

* Narrow purpose extensions:  The working group may provide evaluation of
  such proposals, but typically would not support Working Group adoption,
and could
  recommend publication in a different forum. An example of this might be 
  portions of draft-bormann-cbor-tags-oid dealing with some of the more 
  esoteric types such as regular expressions

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From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 May 2019 01:20:06 +0200

Hi Jim,

thank you (the chairs) for taking this initiative.
I still have to read the whole thing, but I already experience one heavy knee jerk:

> On May 17, 2019, at 00:32, Jim Schaad <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> extensions to CBOR types

I don’t think we should say that we are “extending” CBOR…
Yes, we are exercising its extensibility points, but the result are new (or updated) CBOR Tags, not really extensions to CBOR itself.
(I’m trying separate CBOR the standard from the greater CBOR ecosystem, which includes the Tag definitions.)

(We *are* extending CDDL.  I hope.)

Grüße, Carsten

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From: Jim Schaad <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 May 2019 16:02:13 -0700

While the following work better?

There are a number of additional CBOR tagged types that are ...

Jim

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2019 4:20 PM
> To: Jim Schaad <[email-masked]>
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [Cbor] Charter update
> 
> Hi Jim,
> 
> I don’t think we should say that we are “extending” CBOR… Yes, we are
> exercising its extensibility points, but the result are new (or updated) CBOR
> Tags, not really extensions to CBOR itself.