IAB report to the community for IETF 103

[Ted Hardie <[e-mail]>]

Dear colleagues,

Here is the IAB report to the community about our activities, submitted so
that you can prepare topics you might want to discuss during the upcoming
open mic time.  Of course, if you have issues you want to discuss by email,
feel free to send your comments to [e-mail] (our public
discussion list) or [e-mail] (to reach just the IAB).

The IAB has a few chartered roles. It confirms the appointments to the
IESG, performs standards process oversight, and handles appeals. It also
performs architectural oversight (including appointing the IRTF Chair),
appoints the RFC series editor and oversight committee, manages the IETF's
relationship with IANA, and handles liaisons and appointments both to ISOC
and to other organizations.

Here's what the IAB has been doing since our last report; more detail on
many of the topics is available at https://www.iab.org.

First, I’m happy to note that there were no appeals during this period.

Second, I wish to highlight  a couple of changes in IAB meeting practice.
The agendas for IAB teleconferences
<https://www.iab.org/wiki/index.php/Agenda> are now publicly posted in
advance of the meetings.  The teleconferences themselves are also now open
to observers, except for sections which deal with personnel matters or
similarly sensitive issues.  Call-in information is available as part of
the agenda.

As part of its appointments role, the IAB has filled a number of positions
since our last report.  Tim Wicinski was appointed to the Community
Coordination Group, which advises the IETF Trust. Ole Jacobsen was
re-appointed to the ICANN NomCom, which selects candidates for the ICANN
Board.  The IAB also updated the membership of the RFC Series Oversight
Committee; Sarah Banks, Tony Hansen, Adam Roach, and Peter Saint-Andre were
appointed to serve, along with IAB members Robert Sparks and Christian
Huitema.

There are also a number of positions  for which the IAB is either currently
seeking volunteers or for which calls will go out shortly.  The IAB is
currently soliciting volunteers for the ICANN TLG; you can see that call
for volunteers
<https://www.iab.org/2018/10/23/volunteer-needed-for-icann-technical-liaison-group-3/>on
the IAB web site.  The IAB is looking for new members for the the IAB
Plenary Planning Program
<https://www.iab.org/2018/10/24/iab-seeks-volunteers-for-plenary-planning-program/>.
The IAB is also seeking nominations for IRTF Chair
<https://www.iab.org/2018/10/29/call-for-nominations-irtf-chair-2/>;
Allison Mankin, the current Chair, has indicated that she will be stepping
down after completing this term.

We will also be issuing a call for volunteers to serve on the Internet
Society’s Board of Trustees.  As the Trustees are meeting in Bangkok after
IETF 103 there will be several members of the Board attending the IETF.  If
you are interested in the work of the board, please reach out to the IAB or
one of the current Trustees.
DOCUMENTS

You can always find the documents the IAB has adopted and is working on at
https://datatracker.ietf.org/stream/iab
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/stream/iab>.

Two RFCs have been published since the last report:

RFC 8477 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc8477/> Report from the
Internet of Things (IoT) Semantic Interoperability (IOTSI) Workshop 2016

RFC 8462 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc8462/> Report from the IAB
Workshop on Managing Radio Networks in an Encrypted World (MaRNEW)

Given both the time it takes to produce workshop reports in RFC form and
the occasional mismatch between the style of the workshop and the archival
format of the RFCs, the IAB is now considering whether it would be useful
to allow workshop organizers to consider other publication forms.  A web
page maintained by the IAB on its own site, linked to the original call for
participation, is one form under consideration. The IAB is interested in
feedback on this approach and would welcome any thoughts on it; we expect
discussion to take place on [e-mail].

The IAB also provided comments in response to Australia’s proposed
Assistance and Access Bill
<https://www.iab.org/wp-content/IAB-uploads/2018/09/IAB-Comments-on-Australian-Assistance-and-Access-Bill-2018.pdf>.
While it is unusual for the IAB to comment on legislation, the IAB chose to
do so in this case because of the potential impact on the Internet trust
model and the risk of fragmentation if multiple jurisdictions implemented
similar legislation.
 PROGRAMS

The IAB organizes its work, for the most part, into programs.  There are
basically two classes: management programs and architectural programs.  The
former are how we handle the oversight of various things, and the latter
are where we do architectural work.  The former are expected to last as
long as the IAB continues to have that oversight function; the latter last
until the IAB has come to a conclusion on the relevant group of topics or
has decided that the topic needs to be reframed.  Programs are listed at
https://www.iab.org/activities/programs/. As a general rule, each
architectural program has a public mailing list, as well as a
member-specific list.  For subscription instructions, see
https://www.iab.org/iab-mailing-lists/.

As noted above, the Plenary Planning Program is seeking volunteers; that
group will tackle not just identifying good topics and speakers but also
potentially re-thinking the technical plenary approach more generally.
WORKSHOPS

The IAB has two workshops in preparation, and we anticipate sending the
calls for participation for both at or shortly after IETF 103.  The first,
Exploring Synergy between Content Aggregation and the Publisher Ecosystem,
is a joint workshop with the W3C TAG focused on how web packaging
technologies change the distribution of content on the Internet and the
impact of that change on other parts of the ecosystem.  The second,
tentatively called Current Internet Perception and Evolution, explores the
relationship between consumer/user perceptions of the Internet and
concentration of providers or asymmetry. We are seeking to better
understand the nature of this asymmetry and what new technical standards
(if any) could do to mitigate the risks it represents.

Respectfully submitted,

Ted Hardie

for the IAB