Re: Rechartering QUIC for Post Version 1 Work

[Lucas Pardue <[e-mail]>]

Hi David,

Thanks for the feedback. I've responded in-line, and some of that text
responds to points Ian raised too.

On Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 9:54 PM David Schinazi <[e-mail]>
wrote:

> I'm supportive of the overall direction of this rechartering, with some
> concerns though:
>
> 1) multipath is not mentioned in this charter - based on the conversations
> we've had over the past months, I think we should be explicit about whether
> multipath is in or out of scope
>

The intention was that the new charter would allow the group, as the focal
point for QUIC-related things, to consider work such as multipath QUIC. The
guidance for discussion of multipath is still the same as Lars' sent to the
WG in November [1]. To borrow a bit of that, we still feel it premature to
adopt an proposal as a work item.

There's an interesting contrast between this point and your second point.
It seems there's a balance between being specific and appearing not open to
new ideas.


> 2) +1 to Ian and Dmitri's comments about mentioning current examples in a
> way that seems to preclude other extensions, we could remove the examples
> to help clarify
>

(previously I commented as an individual, but now with a chair hat on) If 3
people have the same comment, it's likely a sign that some polishing up of
the text would help. Specific suggestions always appreciated.


> 3) I was surprised by "Extensions intended for Standards Track need to
> have general applicability to multiple application protocols." and I don't
> think our charter should preclude these. We shouldn't ban standard-track
> protocols that require a QUIC extension to function properly. Perhaps
> another way we could phrase this would be to say that "The QUIC WG is only
> chartered to work on extensions that have general applicability to multiple
> application protocols. Extensions that are specific to an application
> protocol should be defined in the WG responsible for that protocol, in
> consultation with the QUIC WG." -- without stating anything about Standards
> track.
>

I'd like Lars or Magnus to respond to this point too. IIUC the intention of
the text is to say that QUIC transport extensions that wish to be adopted
by this group under Standards Track, should apply broadly. An extension
designed for only one specific use, and which the authors do not wish to
spend time considering design changes that would permit more-general usage,
isn't a great use of the WGs time trying to standardise. However, the QUIC
WG is a good venue to catalog such work as Informational or Experimental. I
don't believe we want to prevent QUIC extensions that are specific to a use
from being developed as Standards Track elsewhere in the IETF.


> 4) It seems off to me to simultaneously declare HTTP/3 logging in-scope
> and HTTP/3 out-of-scope. I think qlog is useful, but if we want to use it
> outside of the QUIC transport protocol then maybe it should live in another
> WG.
>

That's one (fair) interpretation. The intent here is to make it clear that
the QUIC WG no longer owns the HTTP/3 application mapping, as always
intended. qlog doesn't change protocols so working on that falls into the
deployment working area. I expect a large part of the QUIC WG population,
to start with, will be made up of deployers of HTTP/3. So while there has
been some discussion on the most suitable home for qlog and splitting the
drafts up [2], keeping them developed in a single WG would seem like the
best way to channel effort and attention of active deployers. If others
have a strong sense that is not the case they should speak up.



> 5) "Maintenance and evolution of the QUIC base specifications" isn't very
> clear to me - does that mean that working on future versions of QUIC is in
> or out of scope?
>

The full paragraph states:

" Maintenance and evolution of the QUIC base specifications that describe
its invariants, core transport mechanisms, security and privacy, loss
detection and recovery, congestion control, version and extension
negotiation, etc. This includes the specification of new versions of QUIC,
if necessary."

I think that's clear but if you have some suggestions to improve it we'll
take a look.

Cheers,
Lucas

[1] -
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/quic/rcPf7u9AHIGwNr6j0ZqrqFujVvk/
[2] -
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/quic/yv9FFyXItsKK6m-5I5eRE6jnqR8/