Originally posted on 2021-03-05.
This is the IAB report for the period between IETF 109 and IETF 110. This report presents a summary of activities. More detailed information on many of the topics is also available at https://www.iab.org.
Minutes of all IAB business calls are available at https://www.iab.org/documents/minutes/. The IAB business calls are open for observation and the upcoming agenda is posted in advance on the IAB wiki at https://www.iab.org/wiki/index.php/Agenda. The calendar and connection details can also be found there.
If you have issues you want to discuss over email, feel free to send your comments to the IAB as a whole at iab@iab.org.
Appeals
There were no appeals during this reporting period.
Appointments
- In December, the IAB reappointed Colin Perkins as IRTF Chair.
- Also in December, the IAB reappointed Warren Kumari to the ICANN Technical Liaison Group.
- The IAB is in the process of making two appointments to the Internet Society Board of Trustees. These appointments will be confirmed by the IESG, and the names will be released in May when the full slate of Trustees has been chosen.
IAB Chair Selection
In order to manage the IAB transition effectively with a minimum impact on the core IETF 110 virtual meeting, the IAB brought forward the meetings usually held on the Sunday of IETF week to the week prior to the online meeting. The Selection Committee composed of the incoming and ongoing IAB members has chosen to reappoint Mirja Kühlewind to serve as the IAB’s chair for 2021-2022.
IAB Open Meeting
During IETF 110, the IAB will hold an IAB Open Meeting on Thursday, March 11, 2021, 14:30 – 15:30 UTC. The goal of this meeting is to increase interactions with the community in both directions: providing information about and reporting back on technical work done, as well as gathering input about on-going work.
The agenda for the IETF 110 session can be found here: https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/110/agenda/agenda-110-iabopen-00
Meetecho link to join the meeting:
https://meetings.conf.meetecho.com/ietf110/?group=iabopen&short=&item=1
Liaisons
Liaison statements are posted at https://datatracker.ietf.org/liaison/.
The IAB sent two liaison statements since IETF 109:
- IETF Liaison Statement to ISO/TC 154 about ISO 14533 (sent 2021-02-12)
- Liaison to ISO/TC 46 on User assigned code elements (sent 2021-02-19)
The IAB is currently in the process of reviewing its liaison management and oversight function. Liaison handling is an important responsibility of the IAB and therefore the IAB wants to improve its processes and ensure this responsibility is implemented adequately. The goal is to make processes for liaison management and processing of liaison statements more clear and transparent to the community. This activity also aims to ensure continuity of knowledge by finding better approaches to improve the knowledge transfer between the IAB and a broad range of community experts.
As a first step the IAB has established a new Liaison Coordinator position. This position replaces the liaison shepherd structure that the IAB has established to handle its oversight role of the liaison manager system. This change should not impact the work of the liaison managers itself, except that there is now a clear contact point for them as well as for the community regarding any liaison-related requests towards the IAB. The IAB hopes that this change will also help in future to improve coordination and communication between the liaison managers and the IAB, and the IAB is further actively working towards these kinds of additional improvements.
To reach the IAB liaison coordinator(s) a new mailing alias has been established: liaison-coordination@iab.org. For requests, where an established liaison relationship exists, the liaison managers can still be contacted directly (see https://www.ietf.org/about/liaisons/). Further, you can of course also still reach the IAB directly with any questions regarding liaisons by sending a mail to iab@iab.org or to the IAB chair to iab-chair@iab.org.
Programs
Programs are listed at https://www.iab.org/activities/programs/.
As part of its effort to refine the IAB’s program structure into Technical Programs and Administrative Support Groups, the IAB is currently reviewing all open Programs.
The IAB recently requested feedback on a proposed restructuring of the IANA Program.
The Liaison Oversight Program has been dormant for several years, and does not have a clear role to play in liaison management as of today. The program supported the IAB in developing the framework for liaison relationships and setting the requirements for the related IT systems, but these activities were completed some time ago. Given the currently unclear function and role of the IAB Oversight Program, the IAB has decided to conclude the program.
As per our charter, “[t]he IAB acts as representative of the interests of the IETF and the Internet Society in technical liaison relationships with other organizations concerned with standards and other technical and organizational issues relevant to the world-wide Internet.” That representation is carried out by liaison managers, who are selected from the community by the IAB. Liaison managers are overseen by members of the IAB. The closure of the Liaison Oversight Program is not intended to propose any changes to the liaison manager system at this time, as the IAB believes that this representation works well.
Documents and IAB Statements
All documents the IAB has adopted and is working on can be found at https://datatracker.ietf.org/stream/iab. Since IETF 109, the IAB has published:
Workshops and Workshop reports
A draft of the report from the virtual workshop the IAB held last November on COVID-19 Network Impacts is currently underway: draft-iab-covid19-workshop-01
Mailing lists
IAB-maintained mailing lists are listed at https://www.iab.org/iab-mailing-lists/.
Tommy Pauly and Jiankang Yao serve as the sergeants-at-arms for the architecture-discuss@iab.org mailing list. For program-specific lists, the program chairs act as moderators. The rfc-interest list is moderated by the Temporary RFC Series Project Manager. As for all mailing lists of the IETF, we also expect professional behavior on our mailing lists.
There were no new mailing lists created since IETF 109