Proposal for Consolidating Parts of the ART & TSV Areas

[Martin Duke <[e-mail]>]

The IESG proposes to reorganize the areas by merging the web-related
working groups in ART with most of the transport area to create a new area
called either “Web and Application Transport” (WAT) or “Transport and Web
Applications” (TWA), effective at IETF 119. The IESG invites community
comment on this change.

The Transport area (TSV) is the smallest area in terms of working groups.
More importantly, it has been extremely difficult to find candidates for
the two Transport AD positions for many years. Although the Transport Area
could be managed by one AD, the IESG strongly feels that having a partner
is very important for vacation coverage, managing working groups, handling
conflicts of interest, and so on.

Meanwhile, the Applications and Real Time (ART) area has been growing. The
IESG has already requested a third AD position for ART to be seated by the
NomCom in 2024. One of these three ART ADs would move to the new area,
together with one AD from TSV. Concurrently eliminating a position prevents
growth in the overall size of the IESG.

Similar to the OPS area, this new area would have two centers of gravity
(transport layer and web applications), so that one AD would have transport
expertise and the other would have HTTP expertise. Thematically, this new
area would have cohesion around traditional Transport subjects and ART
protocols that are often used as transports (especially HTTP). These groups
tend to have significant attendance overlaps.

Affected Working Groups

The following working groups would move outside both ART and the new area:

   -

   ALTO to OPS
   -

   DTN to INT
   -

   IPPM to OPS
   -

   SCIM to SEC
   -

   TIGRESS to SEC


The new area would consist of the following working groups:

   -

   AVTCORE
   -

   CDNI
   -

   CCWG
   -

   CORE
   -

   HTTPAPI
   -

   HTTPBIS
   -

   MASQUE
   -

   MOQ
   -

   NFSV4
   -

   QUIC
   -

   RTCWEB
   -

   TAPS
   -

   TCPM
   -

   TSVAREA (to be renamed in accordance with the new area and an updated
   description/purpose)
   -

   TSVWG (this may require a minor recharter, but would retain the same
   competencies)
   -

   WEBTRANS


All other ART working groups would remain in place.

The Transport Area Review Team (TSVART) would not change its purpose,
scope, or operations. The Transport-focused AD would have primary
responsibility for managing this team. The HTTP Directorate would also
remain as-is and would be overseen by the HTTP-oriented AD of the new area.
Details about ARTART are TBD.

Transition Plan

The IESG would request that NomCom not fill the open TSV AD position
currently occupied by Martin Duke. Francesca Palombini and Zahed Sarker
would be the initial ADs for the new area.

The IESG would also request that one of the two ART openings be filled for
only a one-year term, so as to stagger future ART AD terms.

The new area’s AD terms would initially also end at the same time. In the
2024-2025 NomCom cycle, the IESG would request that the NomCom fill two
slots, one with transport expertise and one with HTTP expertise, either of
which could be a one-year term (but not both).

Next Steps

Please submit any comments on this plan, including the name/acronym to
[e-mail] no later than 20 Sep 2023 (anywhere on Earth).

Concurrently, the IESG will work on updated job descriptions to be
transmitted to the NomCom.  It anticipates this update will be relatively
minor.

On Behalf of the IESG,
Martin Duke
Transport AD