[rtcweb] Updating JSEP and BUNDLE

["Murray S. Kucherawy" <[e-mail]>]

Colleagues,

In the final run-up to publication of C238, it was observed that the JSEP
and BUNDLE documents contradict each other in a significant way.

Rather than send them back to the working group to resolve, delaying
publication further for an unknown duration, the authors and Area Directors
involved reached consensus to publish the entire cluster as it was
originally approved, with a note added that acknowledges the contradiction
(without proposing solutions), and stating that the IETF will quickly take
up the work to publish updates.  The specific text is visible as Section
1.3 of RFC 8829 and 1.4 of RFC 8843.

The IESG intends to reconstitute the RTCWEB working group to resolve this
contradiction, with a scope to resolve only that specific issue and publish
a couple of document updates.  The plan is to have this rechartering in
place in time for a meeting at IETF 110 in March.

Below is the proposed re-chartering for the RTCWEB working group.  Feedback
on this is welcome, either on the [e-mail] list, to me privately, or
to the IESG.  We will start the formal process of review and approval on
the next IESG telechat, and have already requested a session during IETF
110 to get the work going.


-MSK, ART AD


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The RTCWEB working group was originally chartered to standardize mechanisms
that provide direct interactive rich communication using audio, video,
collaboration, games, etc. between two peers' web-browsers, without
requiring non-standard extensions or proprietary plug-ins.  The result was
a set of RFCs from RTCWEB, in addition to many other RFCs from other
working groups, all of which are interrelated and had to be published
together in what the RFC Editor refers to as a “cluster”.  In the end, that
cluster comprised more than 40 RFCs and was finally published in January
2021.

During the run-up to publication of the cluster, a contradiction was
identified between what became RFCs 8829 and 8843.  A description of this
contradiction was added to both documents to highlight the problem, and
state our intention to proceed with publication but quickly initiate an
effort to publish updates to the affected documents.

The key part of the added text was as follows:

“The specific issue involves the handling of "m=" sections that are
designated as bundle-only, as discussed in Section 4.1.1
<https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8829#section-4.1.1> of [RFC 8829].
Currently, there is divergence between JSEP and BUNDLE, as well as between
these specifications and existing browser implementations …”

The working group is being reconstituted to take up this contradiction,
come to consensus on a resolution, and issue Standards Track updates for
those two documents.  Updating any other document, or taking up any other
issue, is out of scope and will require IESG approval via rechartering.