IETF sponsorship

At the IETF meeting, on Tuesday, December 10, 1996, I had the opportunity
to have lunch with the IETF Application Area Directors, Harald Alvestrand,
and Keith Moore.  Also in attendance at this lunch were Larry Masinter, and
Del Jensen.   When we weren't fighting the noise from planes (from the
nearby San Jose airport), trains (we were eating at a cafe right next to
the San Jose Light Rail tracks), and automobiles (the cafe was also right
on the street), we discussed whether the IETF should have a working group
considering Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning issues.

The impression I received was that our draft charter was well received, and
managed to avoid several common draft charter pitfalls.  Both Keith and
Harald liked the idea of working on distributed authoring and versioning
technology.

Some issues that arose:
- I conveyed the group's desire to receive sponsorship from both the W3C
and the IETF.  Keith and Harald wanted to know exactly what this meant --
which procedures would be followed, who would control documents, etc.  I
stated that the IETF procedures and guidelines would be the ones followed.
The benefit from W3C sponsorship would be to receive greater review and
exposure in the Web community. Documents would be initially prepared
according to IETF guidelines, then mirrored to the W3C. There was some
concern that being a W3C working group would mean that working group
documents could be kept hidden, which is contrary to the spirit and rules
of the IETF.  I reaffirmed our position that the WEBDAV working group is
open, producing open intermediate and final documents, and that this would
not change under W3C sponsorship.

- There was some concern over having me listed as an author on the DAV
protocol specification, due to my need to claim academic credit for the
activity.  Since I would not be the editor of the document, I received the
impression that this might be workable (but that Keith and Harald would
need to look into this).

At the lunch we discussed a roadmap for what comes next:

- At the WEBDAV BOF, a vote would be taken to determine whether the
participants of the BOF felt the IETF should pursue work in Web Distributed
Authoring and Versioning.

- If the vote was positive, then Harald and Keith would review the draft
charter, and return their comments to me.

- After iterating the charter until it is satisfactory with Harald and
Keith, it will be submitted to the IESG for final approval.

- Jim

Received on Monday, 6 January 1997 14:46:10 UTC