[xrblock] Plans for the AVTCORE, PAYLOAD, and XRBLOCK working groups

[Barry Leiba <[e-mail]>]

The ART ADs have discussed the AVTCORE, PAYLOAD, and XRBLOCK working
groups, the reasons the latter two were split off, and the current
situation.  After discussing those with the other (and former) ART ADs
and with the chairs of those working groups, I’ve decided to re-merge
them.  There is no longer a heavy stream of documents for PAYLOAD and
XRBLOCK, and we don’t expect those that do come in to distract the
AVTCORE working group from its core (sorry) work.  At the same time,
it makes sense to keep that work visible to the AVTCORE community.

As Dan Romaşcanu and Shida Schubert have reduced their IETF activity
and are no longer attending meetings, they are stepping down as
chairs.  Ali Begen will also step down, and I will be looking for
opportunities to use his expertise in chairing other groups.  I very
much thank all of them for their service, and urge others to add their
thanks privately.

We will have three chairs for the merged working group, which will
retain the AVTCORE name: Rachel Huang and Jonathan Lennox will
continue, and Roni Even will join them and bring his expertise in
shepherding PAYLOAD documents through the process.  Thanks very much
to them, also, for their continued service.

Before I “push the button” on this, I’d like to give the working group
a chance to comment: if you feel that there’s a really strong reason
not to do this or to do it differently, please let me know, privately
or on list (in which case, please CC me so I don’t overlook it).  I
plan to start the process of rechartering AVTCORE and making this
merge in a week or two.

Also, I’m asking the tools team if there’s a reasonable way to merge
the datatracker document histories of AVTEXT (12 RFCs and 2 drafts in
cluster 238), PAYLOAD (17 RFCs and 5 drafts), and XRBLOCK (19 RFCs)
into the AVTCORE document list, so we have one place to go for the
list of documents.  I probably will not look to add the AVT working
group's RFCs as well, as there are 115 of them.  I don’t know whether
it’s feasible, but I’ll ask.

Barry, ART Director