IAB Open Meeting
Reported by Abel Weinrib, Intel
An on-line copy of these and other IAB minutes are available from http://www.iab.org/documents/IABmins.

First Session — 4 April
The following IAB members were present:
Brian Carpenter
Steve Crocker
Robert Elz
Elise Gerich
Phill Gross
Christian Huitema
Paul Mockapetris
Jon Postel
Yakov Rekhter
John Romkey
Dave Sincoskie
Abel Weinrib
This meeting was devoted to an open investigation into Dave Crocker’s appeal of activities, or lack of activities, by the IESG in relation to the work of the ONCRPC Working Group of the IETF. At the start, Christian Huitema described the scope of the inquiry — in particular, that the technical merits of ONC/RPC or other technologies is not being addressed here. He then described the format, which included 10-minute statements from the involved parties who had been invited to submit a written statement in advance followed by questions from IAB members. After all of the statements, comments were taken from the floor, limited to two minutes and without repeat speakers. Christian also announced that the IAB would present its finding at the open IAB meeting scheduled for 5 April.

Dave Crocker, the initiator of the appeal, went first. See his slides included with these minutes. He closed with three recommendations:

1.Open accountability of the IESG, including having the IESG held to the same reporting and tracking discipline as working groups and ready availability of the minutes of IESG meetings.

2.Procedure and rule problems should be addressed by allowing the IETF community to grant exceptions by consensus.

3.Policy change: the IESG should do more open consultation with the IETF community.
Questions from the IAB:
Robert Elz: How should the IESG consult the IETF, when should it have happened in this case, and what effect would it have had on RFC 1602? Answer: When process hit a brick wall, the IESG should have come to the community via e-mail or an open meeting at IETF. The community should have fixed RFC 1602 on the fly — it was a broken specification.

Bob Hinden, who was employed by Sun till January of 1995 and was the negotiator on Sun’s side until then, spoke next. See his slides. Bob suggested that we need to fix the specification (RFC 1602) regarding Intellectual Property procedures. He also asked where was the relevant area director during the negotiations and why didn’t ISOC provide liability insurance in a timely fashion?

Questions from the IAB:
Robert Elz: What might the IESG have done to move this along? Answer: The problem was a lack of ownership on the IESG side and too much handing around of the problem. Also, whoever is doing the negotiation really needs to also have the signing authority.

Christian Huitema: Should Sun simply have “abandoned” it via a public statement? Answer: Perhaps; Sun has been giving this technology away for a long time.

Steve Crocker: It is open ended as to why there needs to be a signed agreement. What did Sun need the agreement for? Answer: To meet procedures of RFC 1602, and also to transfer rights to the trademarks.

Next, Steve Nahm from Sun who took over the negotiations from Bob Hinden was invited to speak. He declined the opportunity to present a formal talk, and reported that the agreement is likely to be signed this week.

Question from the IAB:
Christian Huitema: Is Sun trying to maintain Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)? Answer: Sun retains the IPR but licenses to ISOC the exclusive right to make it an Internet standard, to evolve it. Sun will license the technology for free once it gets to Proposed Standard status.

Dave Sincoskie: Would Sun have been happy to send a letter regarding IPR, rather than negotiating a contract with ISOC? Answer: Sun would not like to totally give away the technology; it would prefer to license it.

Dave Sincoskie: Would there have been a way to do it without anyone from ISOC signing anything, but instead simply sending a letter to the standards body? Answer: Sun was following RFC 1602, but would definitely have looked at some other way of doing it.

Steve Crocker: The essence is where has the time gone. How much time has been consumed by Sun, early on and more recently? Answer: The time gap between original suggestion and working group formation was Sun’s and the Area Director’s problem. The working group first met at the March 1994 IETF and was done with their work in May 1994. Since then, the time has been spent in trying to figure out what process to go through to complete it.

Raj Srinivisian, who works for SunSoft and was chair of the ONCRPC Working Group declined to present a formal statement. He commented that the “problem word” in the IPR section of RFC 1602 is “warrant.”

Question from the IAB:
Brian Carpenter: The question has been raised whether two competing technologies can both be IETF standards — what does Raj think about this? Answer: There is a place for competing standards. His hope is that there will be a boilerplate contract that can make the process fast.

Vint Cerf, ISOC President, was not present. His prepared statement was read aloud.

The final presenter was Paul Mockapetris, IESG chair since March 1994. He observed that each legal iteration takes about three months, and outlined the time line for the ONCRPC effort. See his slides. He also observed that everyone is one “rule exception” away from happiness, but the question is who decides.

Question from the IAB:
Christian Huitema: Do you want to be forced to abide by RFC 1602? Does RFC 1602 document rules, guidelines or history? Answer: We need to make a template agreement that will be acceptable to both sides in the future. The final Sun agreement might provide a model for this. We also need ways to deal with patent owners. Finally, we need someone chartered to do negotiations based on these.

Elise Gerich: Do we need some sort of documents other than Informational RFCs to describe binding rules? Answer: Too much corner cutting was a problem.

Dave Sincoskie: Would a unilateral statement be enough? Answer: Yes, as long as the working group can use its judgment and we have a form that sets precedent.

Christian Huitema: Was the existence of competing technologies slowing things down? Answer: No. In fact, Paul was involved in no technical aspects of this matter.

There followed a series of statements from the floor:

Bill Noichian, editor of the original Informational RFCs about Sun RPC: At that time, Sun pretty much left it on the street corner. We need Sun RPC on the standards track so can base other work on it.

William Simpson listed the conclusions he would like to see:

◦The IESG did not know when it was not making forward progress — it should have reported this to the community.

◦The IESG is not getting the support, including legal advice, from the Secretariat that it needs to be a decision making body.

◦Bilateral agreements are not what we want. We strongly prefer technologies that do not have IPR constraints, so the owners should unilaterally release the IPR rights before it becomes a Standard.
Stev Knowles:
The IESG made a bad decision when it decided it wanted to be a standards body, requiring things like insurance, lawyers, etc., — and requiring rules. The problem is that RFC 1602 was known to be broken a year ago, but no one stepped up to fix it.
John Stewart:
It is a bad model for the IETF to own anything, and for ISOC to be a holding company for this. We need a clear definition of the rules.

John Tavs, addressing Mobile IP and patent issues:
“Fair and nondiscriminatory” is difficult to describe. Cookie cutter agreements are not going to be sufficient because different technologies have different values and every case is different.

Second Session — 5 April
•Review of this IAB’s accomplishments. (See slides)
•Reviving the IRTF. (See slides)
•Announce signing of ISO/SC6/JTC1 liaison agreement. The liaison agreement has been signed.
•Findings on ONC inquiry. The following statement was read:
The IAB has been asked to review and respond on the timeliness of the procedures followed for forwarding RPC/XDR to the standards track.

The IAB invited representatives of the IESG, SUN, and ISOC to submit statements documenting their perception of what transpired. Then, during an open session at the IETF, the representatives were invited to present their positions to the IAB and the IETF membership. In addition, the IETF membership was invited to address this topic after the representatives had presented their positions.

After reading the submissions and listening to the presentations and comments made at the open meeting, it seems like the fundamental question being asked is:

(To quote D. Crocker)
“Does the process represent reasonable prudence or institutional paralysis?”

The conclusion of the IAB, and apparently of all the speakers, is that the defined process led to institutional paralysis. The text of RFC 1602, which defines how the IETF/IESG should operate, has a procedure for adopting external technologies which is unimplementable.

The process defined in RFC 1602 has raised deeper issues which warrant consideration. RFC 1602 is intended to specify the process to be followed by the IETF and related bodies. On the other hand, it was assumed that the procedures might require modification over time.

The working group process is the appropriate place to propose modifications to the procedures, with revisions appearing as Internet-Drafts, undergoing the Last Call procedure, and finally being adopted. This is necessarily a slow process and as such may result in an unnecessary obstruction of IETF business.

There must be a mechanism by which the IESG can obtain dispensation from the rules stated in RFC 1602 (or the next version) when documented procedures introduce unnecessary obstruction of business.

The IAB supports the recommendations of many of the speakers who proposed revisions to RFC 1602 which would:

a.designate an owner of the intellectual property rights process

b.specify a procedure to negotiate variations
The IAB also supports the recommendation to the POISED group, that the working group review other standards’ bodies’ procedures prior to revising those of the IETF.

Since the specific reason for this appeal appears to be resolved, it is unnecessary for the IAB to request any action by the IESG or any other bodies.

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Slides – Huitema
Open IAB plenary
Agenda:
1.review of the IAB’s year (CH)
2.IRTF reworking (AW)
3.formal signature (CH)
4.the ONC-RPC appeal (KRE)
What is it the IAB does?
Review of the IAB’s work, April 94 -March 95
◦Representation and liaison
■ISO liaison
■Image of the IETF
■Internet usage survey
■Address assignment
◦Procedures
■Not all RFC are standard
■Reorganize the IRTF
■Process the ONC-RPC appeal
◦Architecture
■Retreats, Workshops, BOF
■Rome and Main-Street
Architecture
Security
Retreat, Feb 1994
follow-on in IESG.
Application infrastructure
Organized July-Sept 1994
Retreat, Oct 1994, Reston
Reporting in progress
Quality of service
Performance measurement.
Scaling the Internet
Multiprovider Internet
Impact of commercialization
Unique addresses are good
Encourage progress on geographic addressing

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Slides – IAB Action Items
IAB Action Items
1994-1995 Term
April 1994
[DONE] Christian Huitema: Edit ISO liaison document to indicate where JTC1 needs to add symmetric text.
[DONE] Christian Huitema: Submit the liaison document to IESG for last call and publication as an informational RFC.
[DONE] Brian Carpenter: Gather information to learn more about the nature and scope of the problems with ISOC/IAB/IETF image. Obtain comments from various communities and report on the results.
[DROPPED] Elise Gerich: Create a sample report/press release for the month of April.
[DROPPED] Paul Mockapetris, Steve Crocker, Jon Postel: Determine which documents are required to obtain insurance (just standards process documents, or complete set?). Get these documents cleaned up in time for the June ISOC trustees meeting–by identifying those people willing to do it, and then pushing them.
[DONE] John Romkey: Start to plan IAB retreat on interesting applications over the Internet. Decide on date and location. Determine problems, agenda, experts to be approached, etc.
[DONE] Abel Weinrib: Collect votes on issues for next meeting.
May 1994
[DROPPED] Christian Huitema and Steve Crocker: Once Bob Braden has finished and released the security workshop report, prepare a brief note outlining actions that should be taken to follow up and either implement or explore the ideas presented in the report.
[DONE] Christian Huitema: Send a message to John Romkey and Eric Huizer encouraging them to coordinate on planning for the applications workshop.
[DONE] Dave Sincoskie: Send copies of the U.S. National Research Council report on infrastructure for the NII to IAB members.
[DROPPED] Dave Sincoskie: Prepare a short straw proposal outlining a “vision thing” architecture document.
[DONE] Yakov Rekhter: Prepare a review of existing IETF work related to “Routing architecture for a multi-provider, international internet.”
July 1994
[DONE] John Romkey: Plan IAB retreat on interesting applications.
[DONE] Brian Carpenter: produce a document about image by Toronto for us to talk about in the IAB meeting on Sunday– starting with recommendations, then summarizes input.
[DONE] Christian Huitema: Send mail to SC6 to clarify “normative” reference to IETF standards.
[DONE] Elise Gerich: Draft a memo to the NICS reiterating that someone who wants a unique address should get one, even if they are not ready yet to connect to the Internet.
September 1994
[DONE] Elise Gerich: Submit to the RFC editor the document on assignment of global addresses and the use of 1597.
[DONE] John Romkey: Send a draft agenda for the workshop to the ii-workshop list for discussion.
[OPEN] Lixia Zhang, Yakov Rekhter and Phill Gross: Write discussion paper on the impact of commercialization on the Internet.
[OPEN] Christian Huitema: Write discussion paper on the integration of services and its impact on usage and models of usage.
[OPEN] Yakov Rekhter: Revise RFC 1560.
October 1994
[DONE] Dave Sincoskie: Follow up on standardizing S/key within the IETF.
[DONE] Lixia Zhang: Ask end-to-end group for their advice on how to measure the “performance” of an internet.
[DROPPED] Dave Sincoskie and Paul Mockapetris: Organize a BOF on internet performance measurement at the next IETF.
[OPEN] Jon Postel (IANA): Report on problems with the current DNS registry process and possible solutions.
[DONE] Christian Huitema: Follow up with Tony Rutkowski on Internet usage survey.
November 1994
[DROPPED] Dave Sincoskie: Call Tony Rutkowski to see if he will take on ownership of the Internet usage survey.
[DONE] Christian Huitema, Jon Postel and Steve Crocker: Write statement re. “branding” RFCs with a protocol number and creation of a web page to support this.
[DONE] Christian Huitema: Get final text of liaison document from Stev Knowles and publish it.
[DROPPED] Lixia Zhang: Review DOD versions of the IETF standards documents.
December 1994
[DONE] Christian Huitema: Set up an organizing committee for an IAB workshop on measurements of Internet service.
[DROPPED] Christian Huitema: Prepare letter to the Internet Society stating that the IAB believes that ISOC should be careful not to “sell its soul” and asking how it plans to support the IETF secretariat.
[DROPPED] Christian Huitema: Prepare survey of how to use existing router MIBs to collect accounting information.
[DONE] All: Provide feedback to Yakov on his paper about “routing architecture for a multi-provider, international internet.”
[OPEN] Jon Postel: Prepare a draft of a statement for ISOC to sign re. proper use of its ownership of IPv6 addresses.
January 1995
[DONE] Elise Gerich: Update document on globally unique addresses.
[DONE] Robert Elz: Respond to comments on the “globally unique addresses” document.
[DONE] Lixia Zhang: Generate progress on geographic addressing by creating a design team (it might include Steve Deering, Paul Francis, Christian, Yakov).
[DONE] Yakov Rekhter: Post routing architecture document as an ID from the IAB after asking for final input from the IAB for one week.
[DONE] Mike St. Johns: Talk to Jon Postel re. rewording of the letter from the IAB to the trustees re. ownership of the address space.
[DONE] Christian Huitema: Convince someone to chair a BOF at the next IETF on measurement of Internet service.
[DONE] Abel Weinrib: Ask John Curran to let new IAB members know of Friday meeting.
February 1995
[DONE] Jon Postel: Prepare a new draft on “Not all RFCs are standard” incorporating the comments received. Get three authors’ review and post as a draft again.
[DONE] Yakov Rekhter: Add examples to the “routing in multiprovider Internet” document.
[DROPPED] All: (BY Feb. 21!) Rank order the list of open issues in the “routing in multiprovider Internet” document with respect to their criticality.
[DONE] Christian Huitema: Get Vint Cerf to sign the ISO/JTC1/SC6 statement.
[OPEN] Jon Postel and Abel Weinrib: Develop a draft document outlining the rules, practices, etc. for the Internet Research Task Force.
[OPEN] All: Send suggestions for areas of work and people to lead them for the IRTF.
[DONE] Paul Mockapetris: Pass the “not all RFC are standard” draft by the IESG.
[OPEN] Lixia Zhang: Make progress on the special group on nonprovider based addressing.
[DONE] Abel Weinrib: Get a slot (early afternoon on Monday or Tuesday preferred) for the ONC inquiry.
[DONE] Christian Huitema: Send a public acknowledgment of appeal to Dave Crocker (and IETF list) and state that we plan to discuss this matter at an open IAB meeting in Danvers.
[DONE] Christian Huitema: Contact the various players re. the ONC inquiry. Gather information and request that they be prepared to speak.
[DONE] Robert Elz: Develop clear statement of the topic of the ONC inquiry.
[DONE] Robert Elz: Start the discovery process: Get advance statements of what they plan to say from the various players.
March 1995
[DONE] Yakov Rekhter: Last call and publish the “routing in multiprovider Internet” document as an informational RFC.
[DONE] Christian Huitema: Arrange for signing of (and sign) ISO/JTC1/SC6 agreement during open IAB meeting at Danvers.
[OPEN] Christian Huitema: Prepare security “propaganda” (summary of what is going on in security coordinating with Jeff Schiller).
[DONE] Christian Huitema: Send Bill Simpson mail inviting him to present at the ONC RPC inquiry.

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Slides – Weinrib
Reviving the Internet Research Task Force
Abel Weinrib AWeinrib@ibeam.intel.com
April 5, 1995
Why Revive the IRTF?
IRTF “mission”
encourage research in areas of importance to the evolution of the Internet and its architecture
Revival
■inform the community about existing Research Groups
■create a process for
■forming new Research Groups
■killing off moribund Research Groups
■keeping the community informed aboutprogress of Research Groups
■provide a home for work that is more research than engineering
■encourage” relocation of some existing and newly proposed IETF Working Groups
IRTF Research Groups
Expectations
■long-lived
■enable in-depth investigations
■cross-organizational
■possibly closed membership
■encourage development of the close working relationship required for productive research
■regular reporting of progress to the Internet community
IRTF Research Groups
Output
■Informational RFCs
■running code
■scholarly publications
■ideas fed into existing or newly-chartered IETF working groups
■IETF technical plenaries
■workshops
Existing Research Groups and IRSG
Chartered Research Groups
Autonomous Networks Deborah Estrin (USC)
End-to-End Services Bob Braden (ISI)
Resource Discovery Mike Schwartz (Colorado)
Privacy and Security Steve Kent (BBN)
Libraries Cliff Lynch (UCOP)

IRTF Steering Group (IRSG)
■research group chairs
■”at large” members
■Dave Clark (MIT)
■Dave Mills (UDEL)
■Bruce Schatz (U Arizona)
Why Create a Research Group
To do great research of importance to theevolution of the Internet
Why bother to form a group?
■attract other great researchers to your cause
■management approval/tenure decisions
■travel support from grants
■potential influence
■rooms available for Research Group meetingsduring IETF meetings
Creating a Research Group
Process is open
(compensates for possibly closed groups)
■anyone may propose creation of a Research Group
■competing groups may exist
Forming a Research Group
■proposal submitted to the IRTF Chair
■charter, chair, founding members, etc.
■chartered by the IAB
■announced to IETF list, others?
Description of the process published as an RFC
■draft available shortly
Group Chair Responsibilities
Manage the group
■track progress
■arrange and run meetings
■etc.
Manage the group’s membership
■the group’s chair is responsible for executing whatever process the group has instituted for making decision on membership
■dictatorship, rough consensus, unanimity, etc.
Regularly report on progress (or lack of it) toIRTF Chair

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Slides – Crocker
Appeal to IAB, 4 April 95
◦D. Crocker
■Past Area Director initiating ONC incorporation discussions
■No current involvement with principals
◦Concern for IESG
■Timely progress
■Accountability
■Scope
Background
◦ONC RPC/XDR
■Initiated 2 years ago
■Working group done long ago
◦No substantial progress on agreement
■No IESG ownership of agreement
■No IESG intent to resolve
■IESG concern for `breaking the rules’
IESG Scope
◦Administration & oversight
■Process
■Content
◦Overworked
■Underpaid
◦How to ensure activities that are
■Open
■Fair
■Timely forward progress
Recommendations for IESG
◦Open accountability
■Same reporting & tracking as WGs
■IESG minutes same as I-Ds and RFCs
◦Procedure & rule problems
■Open IETF consultation/exception
◦Policy changes
■Open IETF consultation

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Slides – Hinden
THOUGHTS ON RPC/XDR PROCESS APPEAL
Robert M. Hinden
Ipsilon Networks, Inc.
April 4, 1995

BACKGROUND
◦Previously Employed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.
■March 92 to January 95
◦Responsible for RPC/XDR Negotiations at Sun during last year there
◦No Current Relationship w/ Sun
■Own small amount of Sun stock
WHY I THINK THIS IS IMPORTANT
◦Important for IETF to be able to Adopt Outside Technology
◦More and More Technology has Intellectual Property Constra ints
■Everyone is Patenting Everything
■Legally Employers own work of Employees
◦Don’t Create an Official “Not Invented Here” Policy
ISSUES
◦RFC 1602 Intellectual Property Procedures
◦No Clear Owner in IETF to Negotiate and Sign an Agreement
◦Reluctance of IESG to Sign an Agreement
RFC 1602
◦Requirements Put too much Responsibility on Technology Donor
■Requires Donor to provide Blanket Protection for ISOC
■Unacceptable for Commercial Organizations
◦RPC / XDR Agreement was First Implementation f these Procedures
■We should fix the “specification ” based on Implementation Experience
NO OWNER IN IETF
◦Who Can / Will Sign an Agreement?
◦Sun was Asked to Negotiate with:
■IETF Executive Director
■ISOC Council
■IETF Chair
■ISOC President
◦Sun Negotiated Four Separate Agreements
■IETF Chair Twice Said Agreement was OK
◦IESG Area Director’s Role?
◦Is Vint Cerf the Only Person who can Sign?
IESG ROLE
◦IESG Charted RPC/XDR Working Group
■Working Group did it’s Job
◦IESG Seemed Reluctant to do it’s Job
■Fear of being Sued?
■Progress was made only after community pushing
◦Would Liability Insurance Help?
■Why didn’t ISOC provide this?
◦IESG Needs to Fulfill it Obligations in Timely Manner

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Slides – Mockapetris
Ancient History
7/93 ONC BOF Amsterdam

9/93 last update to 1602 ID

3/94 ONCRPC chartered
1602 published

Recent History
4/94 Latest IESG / OSF legacy
CNRI agreement rejected by IESG

9/94 PVM task ed to deal with Bob Hinden (Sun)

12/9 4ISOC BOT zeros IETF $ ,
insurance scam 1

1/95 IESG Chair finishes with Hinden,
PVM delivers draft to ISOC,
Secretariat

Current
2/95 Marshall/ Crocker social contract
Vint begins last edits

4/95 Today
Insurance policy still unavailable,
insurance supposedly there.

My Views
We need ability to negotiate.
We need legal support to do so.
IESG people are not lawyers.
Everyone is one “rule exception ” away from happiness, but who decides?
My Views
We need to decide when re calibration of WGs is appropriate.
ISOC role?

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