[tcpm] At TSVAREA in Philadelphia: The Future of Congestion Control at IETF

[Martin Duke <[e-mail]>]

Hello Transport Enthusiasts,
(bcc: TCPM, QUIC, and ICCRG)

Zahed and I would like to invite you to the TSVAREA meeting at IETF 114
(Monday 13:30 local time), where we will be having a more action-oriented
discussion than usual.

*TL;DR* the way we do congestion control standards is written down in RFC
5033 <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5033.html>, and is no longer
aligned with how congestion control innovation happens or the family of
transport protocols that use standard congestion control. The IETF is
largely irrelevant to new congestion control deployments. So we'll discuss
a proposal to fix it. This meeting will have some BoF-like elements but it
is not formally a BoF.

In consultation with several stakeholders, we've devised a strategy to
address this:

* Colin Perkins, IRTF chair, has agreed to add at least one chair to ICCRG
(I'm sure Colin would welcome volunteer candidates!). While retaining its
hosting presentations role, there will be renewed emphasis on serving as a
forum to produce experimental RFCs, with a charter update if necessary.

* The Transport ADs are going to consider chartering a new IETF working
group to update the administrative framework for congestion control
standardization, and potentially adopt any proposals that are sufficiently
mature for the standards track. We've formulated a proposed charter. Please
consider it a starting point for discussion.
https://github.com/martinduke/congestion-control-charter/
I ask you to review this document before attending. It answers many of the
questions you may already have.

In Philadelphia, we hope to answer as many of the following questions as
possible, in order:
* Is there rough consensus on the problem to solve?
* Are the deliverables right?
* Are there people willing to take responsibility for those deliverables?
(The meeting is over if the answer is "no")
* Does the proposed charter need changes?
* Is anyone especially excited to chair this WG?

Please come to Philadelphia having thought about these questions and
prepared to answer them. You are also welcome to share thoughts on the
tsv-area list; all other recipients have been Bcced: so that the rest of
the thread will go to only that list. Subscribe if you want to track the
discussion.

Although charter wordsmithing is somewhat premature, you are also welcome
to file issues and PRs on the github linked above.

See you there,
Martin and Zahed
Your friendly Transport ADs