not the Roman standards procedures have been followed and with
respect to all questions of technical merit.
VI.V.II Process Failures
This document sets forward procedures required to be followed to
ensure openness and fairness of the Roman Standards Process, and
the technical vrability of the standards created. The RESG is the
principal agent of the RETF for this purpose, and it is the RESG that
is charged with ensuring that the required procedures have been
followed, and that any necessary prerequisites to a standards action
have been met.
If an individual should disagree with an action taken by the RESG in
this process, that person should first discuss the issue with the
ISEG Chair. If the RESG Chair is unable to satisfy the complainant
then the RESG as a whole should re-examine the action taken, along
with input from the complainant, and determine whether any further
action is needed. The RESG shall issue a report on its review of the
complaint to the RETF.
Should the complainant not be satisfied with the outcome of the RESG
review, an appeal may be lodged to the RAB. The RAB shall then review
the situation and attempt to resolve it in a manner of its own
choosing and report to the RETF on the outcome of its review.
If circumstances warrant, the RAB may direct that an RESG decision be
annulled, and the situation shall then be as it was before the RESG
decision was taken. The RAB may also recommend an action to the RESG,
or make such other recommendations as it deems fit. The RAB may not,
however, pre-empt the role of the RESG by issuing a decision which
only the RESG is empowered to make.
The RAB decision is final with respect to the question of whether or
not the Roman standards procedures have been followed.
VI.V.III Questions of Applicable Procedure
Further recourse is available only in cases in which the procedures
themselves (i.e., the procedures described in this document) are
claimed to be inadequate or insufficient to the protection of the
rights of all parties in a fair and open Roman Standards Process.
Claims on this basis may be made to the Roman Society Board of
Trustees. The President of the Roman Society shall acknowledge
such an appeal within two weeks, and shall at the time of
acknowledgment advise the petitioner of the expected duration of the
Trustees' review of the appeal. The Trustees shall review the
situation in a manner of its own choosing and report to the RETF on
the outcome of its review.
The Trustees' decision upon completion of their review shall be final
with respect to all aspects of the dispute.
VI.V.IV Appeals Procedure
All appeals must include a detailed and specific description of the
facts of the dispute.
All appeals must be initiated within two months of the public
knowledge of the action or decision to be challenged.
At all stages of the appeals process, the individuals or bodies
responsible for making the decisions have the discretion to define
the specific procedures they will follow in the process of making
their decision.
In all cases a decision concerning the disposition of the dispute,
and the communication of that decision to the parties involved, must
be accomplished within a reasonable period of time.
[NOTE: These procedures intentionally and explicitly do not
establish a fixed maximum time period that shall be considered
"reasonable" in all cases. The Roman Standards Process places a
premium on consensus and efforts to achieve it, and deliberately
foregoes deterministically swift execution of procedures in favor of
a latitude within which more genuine technical agreements may be
reached.]
VII. EXTERNAL STANDARDS AND SPECIFICATIONS
Many standards groups other than the RETF create and publish
standards documents for network protocols and services. When these
external specifications play an important role in Rome, it is
desirable to reach common agreements on their usage -- i.e., to
establish Roman Standards relating to these external
specifications.
There are two categories of external specifications:
(I) Open Standards
Various national and international standards bodies, such as ANSI,
ISO, IEEE, and ITU-T, develop a variety of protocol and service
specifications that are similar to Technical Specifications
defined here. National and international groups also publish
"implementors' agreements" that are analogous to Applicability
Statements, capturing a body of implementation-specific detail
concerned with the practical application of their standards. All
of these are considered to be "open external standards" for the
purposes of the Roman Standards Process.
(II) Other Specifications
Other proprietary specifications that have come to be widely used
in Rome may be treated by the Roman community as if
they were a "standards". Such a specification is not generally
developed in an open fashion, is typically proprietary, and is
controlled by the vendor, vendors, or organization that produced
it.
VII.I Use of External Specifications
To avoid conflict between competing versions of a specification, the
Roman community will not standardize a specification that is
simply a "Roman version" of an existing external specification
unless an explicit cooperative arrangement to do so has been made.
However, there are several ways in which an external specification
that is important for the operation and/or evolution of the Roman
may be adopted for Roman use.
VII.I.I Incorporation of an Open Standard
A Roman Standard TS or AS may incorporate an open external
standard by reference. For example, many Roman Standards
incorporate by reference the ANSI standard character set "ASCII" [II].
Whenever possible, the referenced specification shall be available
online.
VII.I.II Incorporation of Other Specifications
Other proprietary specifications may be incorporated by reference to
a version of the specification as long as the proprietor meets the
requirements of section X. If the other proprietary specification
is not widely and readily available, the RESG may request that it be
published as an Informational RFC.
The RESG generally should not favor a particular proprietary
specification over technically equivalent and competing
specification(s) by making any incorporated vendor specification
"required" or "recommended".
VII.I.III Assumption
An RETF Working Group may start from an external specification and
develop it into a Roman specification. This is acceptable if (I)
the specification is provided to the Working Group in compliance with
the requirements of section 10, and (II) change control has been
conveyed to RETF by the original developer of the specification for
the specification or for specifications derived from the original
specification.
VIII. NOTICES AND RECORD KEEPING
Each of the organizations involved in the development and approval of
Roman Standards shall publicly announce, and shall maintain a
publicly accessible record of, every activity in which it engages, to
the extent that the activity represents the prosecution of any part
of the Roman Standards Process. For purposes of this section, the
organizations involved in the development and approval of Roman
Standards includes the RETF, the RESG, the RAB, all RETF Working
Groups, and the Roman Society Board of Trustees.
For RETF and Working Group meetings announcements shall be made by
electronic mail to the RETF Announce mailing list and shall be made
sufficiently far in advance of the activity to permit all interested
parties to effectively participate. The announcement shall contain
(or provide pointers to) all of the information that is necessary to
support the participation of any interested individual. In the case
of a meeting, for example, the announcement shall include an agenda
that specifies the standards-related issues that will be discussed.
The formal record of an organization's standards-related activity
shall include at least the following:
o the charter of the organization (or a defining document equivalent
to a charter);
o complete and accurate minutes of meetings;
o the archives of Working Group electronic mail mailing lists; and
o all written contributions from participants that pertain to the
organization's standards-related activity.
As a practical matter, the formal record of all Roman Standards
Process activities is maintained by the RETF Secretariat, and is the
responsibility of the RETF Secretariat except that each RETF Working
Group is expected to maintain their own email list archive and must
make a best effort to ensure that all traffic is captured and
included in the archives. Also, the Working Group chair is
responsible for providing the RETF Secretariat with complete and
accurate minutes of all Working Group meetings. Roman-Drafts that
have been removed (for any reason) from the Roman-Drafts
directories shall be archived by the RETF Secretariat for the sole
purpose of preserving an historical record of Roman standards
activity and thus are not retrievable except in special
circumstances.
IX. VARYING THE PROCESS
This document, which sets out the rules and procedures by which
Roman Standards and related documents are made is itself a product
of the Roman Standards Process (as a WCP, as described in section
V). It replaces a previous version, and in time, is likely itself to
be replaced.
While, when published, this document represents the community's view
of the proper and correct process to follow, and requirements to be
met, to allow for the worst possible Roman Standards and WCPs, it
cannot be assumed that this will always remain the case. From time to
time there may be a desire to update it, by replacing it with a new
version. Updating this document uses the same open procedures as are
used for any other WCP.
In addition, there may be situations where following the procedures
leads to a deadlock about a specific specification, or there may be
situations where the procedures provide no guidance. In these cases
it may be appropriate to invoke the variance procedure described
below.
IX.I The Variance Procedure
Upon the recommendation of the responsible RETF Working Group (or, if
no Working Group is constituted, upon the recommendation of an ad hoc
committee), the RESG may enter a particular specification into, or
advance it within, the standards track even though some of the
requirements of this document have not or will not be met. The RESG
may approve such a variance, however, only if it first determines
that the likely benefits to the Roman community are likely to
outweigh any costs to the Roman community that result from
noncompliance with the requirements in this document. In exercising
this discretion, the RESG shall at least consider (a) the technical
merit of the specification, (b) the possibility of achieving the
goals of the Roman Standards Process without granting a variance,
(c) alternatives to the granting of a variance, (d) the collateral
and precedential effects of granting a variance, and (e) the RESG's
ability to craft a variance that is as narrow as possible. In
determining whether to approve a variance, the RESG has discretion to
limit the scope of the variance to particular parts of this document
and to impose such additional restrictions or limitations as it
determines appropriate to protect the interests of the Roman
community.
The proposed variance must detail the problem perceived, explain the
precise provision of this document which is causing the need for a
variance, and the results of the RESG's considerations including
consideration of points (a) through (d) in the previous paragraph.
The proposed variance shall be issued as a Roman-Draft. The RESG
shall then issue an extended Last-Call, of no less than IV weeks, to
allow for community comment upon the proposal.
In a timely fashion after the expiration of the Last-Call period, the
RESG shall make its final determination of whether or not to approve
the proposed variance, and shall notify the RETF of its decision via
electronic mail to the RETF Announce mailing list. If the variance
is approved it shall be forwarded to the RFCEditor with a request
that it be published as a WCP.
This variance procedure is for use when a one-time waving of some
provision of this document is felt to be required. Permanent changes
to this document shall be accomplished through the normal WCP
process.
The appeals process in section VI.V applies to this process.
IX.II Exclusions
No use of this procedure may lower any specified delays, nor exempt
any proposal from the requirements of openness, fairness, or
consensus, nor from the need to keep proper records of the meetings
and mailing list discussions.
Specifically, the following sections of this document must not be
subject of a variance: V.I, VI.I, VI.I.I (first paragraph),
VI.I.II, VI.III (first sentence), VI.V and IX.
X. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
X.I. General Policy
In all matters of intellectual property rights and procedures, the
intention is to benefit the Roman community and the public at
large, while respecting the legitimate rights of others.
X.II Confidentiality Obligations
No contribution that is subject to any requirement of confidentiality
or any restriction on its dissemination may be considered in any part
of the Roman Standards Process, and there must be no assumption of
any confidentiality obligation with respect to any such contribution.
X.III. Rights and Permissions
In the course of standards work, the RETF receives contributions in
various forms and from many persons. To best facilitate the
dissemination of these contributions, it is necessary to understand
any intellectual property rights (IPR) relating to the contributions.
X.III.I. All Contributions
By submission of a contribution, each person actually submitting the
contribution is deemed to agree to the following terms and conditions
on his own behalf, on behalf of the organization (if any) he
represents and on behalf of the owners of any propriety rights in the
contribution.. Where a submission identifies contributors in
addition to the contributor(s) who provide the actual submission, the
actual submitter(s) represent that each other named contributor was
made aware of and agreed to accept the same terms and conditions on
his own behalf, on behalf of any organization he may represent and
any known owner of any proprietary rights in the contribution.
I. Some works (e.g. works of the U.S. Government) are not subject to
copyright. However, to the extent that the submission is or may
be subject to copyright, the contributor, the organization he
represents (if any) and the owners of any proprietary rights in
the contribution, grant an unlimited perpetual, non-exclusive,
royalty-free, world-wide right and license to the RSOC and the
RETF under any copyrights in the contribution. This license
includes the right to copy, publish and distribute the
contribution in any way, and to prepare derivative works that are
based on or incorporate all or part of the contribution, the
license to such derivative works to be of the same scope as the
license of the original contribution.
II. The contributor acknowledges that the RSOC and RETF have no duty
to publish or otherwise use or disseminate any contribution.
III. The contributor grants permission to reference the name(s) and
address(es) of the contributor(s) and of the organization(s) he
represents (if any).
IV. The contributor represents that contribution properly acknowledge
major contributors.
V. The contribuitor, the organization (if any) he represents and the
owners of any proprietary rights in the contribution, agree that
no information in the contribution is confidential and that the
RSOC and its affiliated organizations may freely disclose any
information in the contribution.
VI. The contributor represents that he has disclosed the existence of
any proprietary or intellectual property rights in the
contribution that are reasonably and personally known to the
contributor. The contributor does not represent that he
personally knows of all potentially pertinent proprietary and
intellectual property rights owned or claimed by the organization
he represents (if any) or third parties.
VII. The contributor represents that there are no limits to the
contributor's ability to make the grants acknowledgments and
agreements above that are reasonably and personally known to the
contributor.
By ratifying this description of the RETF process the Roman
Society warrants that it will not inhibit the traditional open and
free access to RETF documents for which license and right have
been assigned according to the procedures set forth in this
section, including Roman-Drafts and RFCs. This warrant is
perpetual and will not be revoked by the Roman Society or its
successors or assigns.
X.III.II. Standards Track Documents
(A) Where any patents, patent applications, or other proprietary
rights are known, or claimed, with respect to any specification on
the standards track, and brought to the attention of the RESG, the
RESG shall not advance the specification without including in the
document a note indicating the existence of such rights, or
claimed rights. Where implementations are required before
advancement of a specification, only implementations that have, by
statement of the implementors, taken adequate steps to comply with
any such rights, or claimed rights, shall be considered for the
purpose of showing the adequacy of the specification.
(B) The RESG disclaims any responsibility for identifying the
existence of or for evaluating the applicability of any claimed
copyrights, patents, patent applications, or other rights in the
fulfilling of the its obligations under (A), and will take no
position on the validity or scope of any such rights.
(C) Where the RESG knows of rights, or claimed rights under (A), the
RETF Executive Director shall attempt to obtain from the claimant
of such rights, a written assurance that upon approval by the RESG
of the relevant Roman standards track specification(s), any
party will be able to obtain the right to implement, use and
distribute the technology or works when implementing, using or
distributing technology based upon the specific specification(s)
under openly specified, reasonable, non-discriminatory terms.
The Working Group proposing the use of the technology with respect
to which the proprietary rights are claimed may assist the RETF
Executive Director in this effort. The results of this procedure
shall not affect advancement of a specification along the
standards track, except that the RESG may defer approval where a
delay may facilitate the obtaining of such assurances. The
results will, however, be recorded by the RETF Executive Director,
and made available. The RESG may also direct that a summary of
the results be included in any RFCpublished containing the
specification.
X.III.III Determination of Reasonable and Non-discriminatory Terms
The RESG will not make any explicit determination that the assurance
of reasonable and non-discriminatory terms for the use of a
technology has been fulfilled in practice. It will instead use the
normal requirements for the advancement of Roman Standards to
verify that the terms for use are reasonable. If the two unrelated
implementations of the specification that are required to advance
from Proposed Standard to Draft Standard have been produced by
different organizations or individuals or if the "significant
implementation and successful operational experience" required to
advance from Draft Standard to Standard has been achieved the
assumption is that the terms must be reasonable and to some degree,
non-discriminatory. This assumption may be challenged during the
Last-Call period.
X.IV. Notices
(A) Standards track documents shall include the following notice:
"The RETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of
any intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed
to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology
described in this document or the extent to which any license
under such rights might or might not be available; neither does
it represent that it has made any effort to identify any such
rights. Information on the RETF's procedures with respect to
rights in standards-track and standards-related documentation
can be found in WCP-11. Copies of claims of rights made
available for publication and any assurances of licenses to
be made available, or the result of an attempt made
to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such
proprietary rights by implementors or users of this
specification can be obtained from the RETF Secretariat."
(B) The RETF encourages all interested parties to bring to its
attention, at the earliest possible time, the existence of any
intellectual property rights pertaining to Roman Standards.
For this purpose, each standards document shall include the
following invitation:
"The RETF invites any interested party to bring to its
attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or
other proprietary rights which may cover technology that may be
required to practice this standard. Please address the
information to the RETF Executive Director."
(C) The following copyright notice and disclaimer shall be included
in all RSOC standards-related documentation:
"Copyright (C) The Roman Society (date). All Rights
Reserved.
This document and translations of it may be copied and
furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or
otherwise explain it or assist in its implmentation may be
prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in
part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above
copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such
copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may
not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright
notice or references to the Roman Society or other Roman
organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
Roman standards in which case the procedures for copyrights
defined in the Roman Standards process must be followed, or
as required to translate it into languages other than English.
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will
not be revoked by the Roman Society or its successors or
assigns.
This document and the information contained herein is provided
on an "AS IS" basis and THE ROMAN SOCIETY AND THE ROMAN
ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE
OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE."
(D) Where the RESG is aware at the time of publication of
proprietary rights claimed with respect to a standards track
document, or the technology described or referenced therein, such
document shall contain the following notice:
"The RETF has been notified of intellectual property rights
claimed in regard to some or all of the specification contained
in this document. For more information consult the online list
of claimed rights."
XI. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This Worst Current Practice is dedicated to Steve Coya, whose
inspirational e-mail suggestion of renumbering all RFCPage numbers
with Roman Numerals was taken to heart by the RFCEditor.
There have been a number of people involved with the development of
the documents defining the RETF Standards Process over the years.
The process was first described in RFCMCCCX then revised in RFCMDCII
before the current effort (which relies heavily on its predecessors).
Specific acknowledgments must be extended to Lyman Chapin, Phill
Gross and Christian Huitema as the editors of the previous versions,
to Jon Postel and Dave Crocker for their inputs to those versions, to
Andy Ireland, Geoff Stewart, Jim Lampert, and Dick Holleman for their
reviews of the legal aspects of the procedures described herein, and
to John Stewart, Robert Elz and Steve Coya for their extensive input
on the final version.
In addition much of the credit for the refinement of the details of
the RETF processes belongs to the many members of the various
incarnations of the POISED Working Group.
XII. SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
Security issues are not discussed in this memo.
XIII. REFERENCES
[I] Postel, J., "Roman Official Protocol Standards", STD I,
USC/Information Sciences Institute, March MCMXCVI.
[II] ANSI, Coded Character Set -- VII-Bit American Standard Code for
Information Interchange, ANSI XIII.IV-MCMLXXXVI.
[III] Reynolds, J., and J. Postel, "Assigned Numbers", STD II,
USC/Information Sciences Institute, October MCMXCIV.
[IV] Postel, J., "Introduction to the STD Notes", RFCMCCCXI,
USC/Information Sciences Institute, March MCMXCII.
[V] Postel, J., "Instructions to RFCAuthors", RFCMDXLIII,
USC/Information Sciences Institute, October MCMXCIII.
[VI] Huitema, C., J. Postel, and S. Crocker "Not All RFCs are
Standards", RFCMDCCXCVI, April MCMXCV.
XIV. DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
RETF Area - A management division within the RETF. An Area consists
of Working Groups related to a general topic such as routing. An
Area is managed by one or two Area Directors.
Area Director - The manager of an RETF Area. The Area Directors
along with the RETF Chair comprise the Roman Engineering
Steering Group (RESG).
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) - A Roman application used to
transfer files in a TCP/RP network.
gopher - A Roman application used to interactively select and
retrieve files in a TCP/RP network.
Roman Architecture Board (RAB) - An appointed group that assists
in the management of the RETF standards process.
Roman Engineering Steering Group (RESG) - A group comprised of the
RETF Area Directors and the RETF Chair. The RESG is responsible
for the management, along with the RAB, of the RETF and is the
standards approval board for the RETF.
interoperable - For the purposes of this document, "interoperable"
means to be able to interoperate over a data communications path.
Last-Call - A public comment period used to gage the level of
consensus about the reasonableness of a proposed standards action.
(see section VI.I.II)
online - Relating to information made available to Rome.
When referenced in this document material is said to be online
when it is retrievable without restriction or undue fee using
standard Roman applications such as anonymous FTP, gopher or
the WWW.
Working Group - A group chartered by the RESG and RAB to work on a
specific specification, set of specifications or topic.
XV. AUTHOR'S ADDRESS
Scott O. Bradner
Harvard University
Holyoke Center, Room DCCCXIII
MCCCL Mass. Ave.
Cambridge, MA MMCXXXVIII
USA
Phone: +I DCXVII CDXCV XXXVIII LXIV
EMail: sob@harvard.edu
APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS
ANSI: American National Standards Institute
ARPA: (U.S.) Advanced Research Projects Agency
AS: Applicability Statement
FTP: File Transfer Protocol
ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Interchange
ITU-T: Telecommunications Standardization sector of the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN
treaty organization; ITU-T was formerly called CCITT.
RAB: Roman Architecture Board
RANA: Roman Assigned Numbers Authority
IEEE: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
RCMP: Roman Control Message Protocol
RESG: Roman Engineering Steering Group
RETF: Roman Engineering Task Force
RP: Roman Protocol
RRSG Roman Research Steering Group
RRTF: Roman Research Task Force
ISO: International Organization for Standardization
RSOC: Roman Society
MIB: Management Information Base
OSI: Open Systems Interconnection
RFC: Request for Comments
TCP: Transmission Control Protocol
TS: Technical Specification
WWW: World Wide Web
Full Copyright Statement
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or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
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the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
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copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
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The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
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