Proto E. Juskevicius Internet Draft TrekAhead Intended status: Informational January 2, 2010 Expires: July 2, 2010 Definition of Working Group Document States draft-ietf-proto-wgdocument-states-01.txt Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 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Juskevicius Expires July 2, 2010 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Working Group Document States January 2010 Abstract This document contains definitions for all of the different states that documents (viz. Internet-Drafts) may experience while associated with an IETF working group. The first state occurs when an I-D is submitted for consideration as a working group item, and the last state is either when the I-D is sent to the IESG for publication, or declared as "dead". The intended purpose of this Internet-Draft is to serve as a basis for defining requirements to update the I-D tracker tool, to permit WG Chairs and other persons to view the progression of documents through IETF working groups. Table of Contents 1. Introduction...................................................2 2. Conventions used in this document..............................3 3. Definitions of Possible WG Document States.....................3 3.1. WG Document States........................................3 3.1.1. Candidate WG Document................................3 3.1.2. Active WG Document...................................3 3.1.3. Not a WG Document....................................4 3.1.4. Parked WG Document...................................4 3.1.5. In WG Last Call......................................4 3.1.6. Waiting for WG Document Shepherd Write-Up............4 3.1.7. Submitted to IESG for Publication....................4 3.1.8. Dead WG Document.....................................4 3.2. Straw Man State Diagram...................................5 3.3. WG Document Sub-states....................................6 3.3.1. Sub-state Annotations................................6 3.3.2. Intended WG Document Status..........................6 4. Security Considerations........................................7 5. IANA Considerations............................................7 6. References.....................................................7 6.1. Normative References......................................7 6.2. Informative References....................................7 7. Acknowledgments................................................7 1. Introduction A deficiency of the current IETF I-D Tracker is that it has no information about the status of Internet Drafts (I-Ds), other than "I-D Exists" prior to the time when Working Groups (WGs) send documents to the IESG along for publication. Juskevicius Expires July 2, 2010 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Working Group Document States January 2010 This document contains definitions for all of the different states that documents written for consideration by IETF WGs may experience during their progression through the process. The purpose of articulating these definitions is to enable community discussion on them, and on a state diagram for the 'preferred' path that most WGs use to progress I-Ds. A desired outcome of this initiative is to facilitate the coding of front-end extensions to the I-D Tracker tool, to allow WG Chairs and other members of the community to monitor the status of I-Ds as they progress through IETF working groups. In order for the I-D Tracker to reflect WG document status information, new WG document states and sub-state "annotation tags" need to be defined, agreed, and then coded into the front-end of the tool. 2. Conventions used in this document The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC-2119 Error! Reference source not found.. 3 3. . D De ef fi in ni it ti io on ns s o of f P Po os ss si ib bl le e W WG G D Do oc cu um me en nt t S St ta at te es s Section 3.1 defines the possible states that could apply to an I-D that has been submitted to an IETF working group. Section 3.2 illustrates the states in a state diagram. Section 3.3 defines additional terms to describe various WG document sub-states 3.1. WG Document States 3.1.1. Candidate WG Document This document is under consideration for becoming a working group document. A document being in this state does not imply any consensus, and does not imply any precedence or selection. The purpose of this state is simply to indicate that someone has asked for an existing I-D to be considered for acceptance as a working group document. 3.1.2. Active WG Document This document has been adopted by a working group, and is being actively developed. Juskevicius Expires July 2, 2010 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Working Group Document States January 2010 3.1.3. Not a WG Document This document is not a WG Document. An I-D may be in this state for a variety of reasons. Some examples are: * the I-D was a "Candidate WG Document" but was rejected by the WG; * the I-D is an IAB or IRTF document, or an independent submission not intended to become a WG document 3.1.4. Parked WG Document This document has lost its author or editor, is waiting for another document to be written, or cannot currently be progressed by the working group for some other reason. 3.1.5. In WG Last Call A working group last call has been issued for this document, and is in progress. After the last call is completed, the document may return to being an "Active WG Document" again, or be "Parked" for a variety of reasons, or enter the "Waiting for Document Shepherd Write-Up" state. Many members of the community ask for additional information to be forthcoming when the result of a WG Last Call is "Revised ID Needed". See section 3.3.1 for a sub-state "annotation tag" intended to provide such additional information. 3.1.6. Waiting for WG Document Shepherd Write-Up The working group last call has been completed and the document is waiting for the Document Shepherd to submit his/her write-up. 3.1.7. Submitted to IESG for Publication The document has been submitted to the IESG for publication (and has not returned to the WG for further action). The document may be under consideration by the IESG, it may have been approved and be in the RFC Editor's queue, or it may have been published as an RFC; this state does not distinguish between different states that may occur after the document has left the working group. 3.1.8. Dead WG Document This document was a WG document, but has been abandoned. Note that this does not have to be a final state. If consensus is Juskevicius Expires July 2, 2010 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Working Group Document States January 2010 subsequently achieved in the working group, a Dead WG Document can be resurrected. 3.2. Straw Man State Diagram Figure 1 illustrates the different states defined in section 3.1, and some of the state transitions that an I-D may experience. +------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | I-D | | Exists | | | | | | | | | | v | | | | CANDIDATE WG --------------> NOT A WG | | DOCUMENT DOCUMENT | | _| | | +----------------+ | | | | | v | | WAITING FOR | | +---------> ACTIVE WG ---> IN WG ----> DOC SHEPHERD | | | DOCUMENT LAST CALL WRITE-UP | | | | | | | | | ^ . | | | | | . | | | PARKED WG <-------+ | . | | | DOCUMENT <-----+ | . v | | | | . | | | | | . Submitted | | | | | - - < - < - - - (to IESG) | | | | For Publication | | +-------> DEAD WG DOCUMENT | | | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------+ Figure 1 - Diagram of I-D states relevant to IETG working groups Juskevicius Expires July 2, 2010 [Page 5] Internet-Draft Working Group Document States January 2010 3.3. WG Document Sub-states In addition to identifying the state that each WG Document is in, it would be informative to indicate associated sub-states or conditions which may affect each WG Document. These conditions do not change the state of WG documents, but they can be used, for example, to help the community to understand why a document is in the state it is in, and/or to indicate the next action needed for the document. 3.3.1. Sub-state Annotations Each of the sub-state annotations defined here may be appropriate to indicate the sub-state of WG Documents at different times. They are: * "Awaiting Cross-Area Review" * "Awaiting MIB Doctor Review" * "Awaiting Security Review" * "Awaiting Other Reviews" * "Awaiting Merge with other Document" * "Doc Shepherd Follow-up" * "Editor Needed" * "Held due to Dependency on other Document" * "Held due to IESG concerns on this Document" * "Revised ID Needed - based on WG consensus" * "Revised ID Needed - after on WG last call" * "Other - see Comment Log" 3.3.2. Intended WG Document Status In addition to the sub-state annotation tags defined in section 3.3.1, the intended maturity level of every WG Document should also be tracked. The definition of the maturity levels are as in sections 4 and 5 of RFC 2026 [2]. They are: * "Experimental" * "Informational" * "Best Current Practice" * "Proposed Standard" * "Draft Standard" * "Full Standard" * "Historic" Juskevicius Expires July 2, 2010 [Page 6] Internet-Draft Working Group Document States January 2010 4. Security Considerations This document does not propose any new internet mechanisms, and has no security implications for the internet. 5. IANA Considerations This document does not require any new number assignments from IANA, and does not define any new numbering spaces to be administered by IANA. RFC-Editor: Please remove this section before publication. 6. References 6.1. Normative References [1] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [2] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process - Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996. 6.2. Informative References [3] Levkowetz, H., and Mankin, A., "Requirements on I-D Tracker Extensions for Working Group Chairs", draft-ietf-proto- wgchair-tracker-ext-03, February 8, 2007. 7. Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Henrik Levkowetz and Allison Mankin for writing the original document [3] that this I-D borrows copious amounts of text from. The author would also like to thank Henrik Levkowetz, Pasi Eronen, Mary Barnes, Glenn Parsons, Russ Housley, Marc Blanchet and other WG chairs for useful discussions, comments and suggestions. This document was initially prepared using 2-Word-v2.0.template.dot. Juskevicius Expires July 2, 2010 [Page 7] Internet-Draft Working Group Document States January 2010 Author's Address Ed Juskevicius TrekAhead PO Box 491, Carp, ON CANADA Email: edj.etc@gmail.com Juskevicius Expires July 2, 2010 [Page 8]