This report contains IESG meeting notes, positions and action items.
These minutes were compiled by the IETF Secretariat which is supported
by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. NCR 8820945.
For more information please contact the IESG Secretary.
ATTENDEES
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Almquist, Philip / Consultant
Crocker, Dave / TBO
Crocker, Steve / TIS
Coya, Steve / CNRI
Davin, Chuck / Bellcore
Gross, Philip / ANS
Hinden, Robert / SUN
Hobby, Russ / UC-DAVIS
Huizer, Erik / SURFnet
Stockman, Bernard / SUNET/NORDUnet
Vaudreuil, Greg / CNRI
Regrets
Borman, David / Cray Research
Knowles, Stev / FTP Software
Reynolds, Joyce / ISI
Piscitello, Dave/ Bellcore
AGENDA
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1) Administrivia
o Bash the Agenda
o Review of Minutes
- December 7th
- December 14th
2) IESG Nominations
o Selection of additional members to stand re-nomination
o Selection of IESG non-voting members of nomination committee.
3) Technical Management
o Status of Road feedback
3) Protocol Actions
o IESG approval needed
- FTP/FTAM
- Privacy Enhanced Mail
o IESG action needed
- MTU Discovery
- PPP MIBS
- Sun NFS/RPC
o Working Group Discuss
- DHC
- SMTPext
- Header Compression
- Network Time Protocol
4) Working Group Actions
o IP Security (ipsec)
o Simple IP (sip)
5) Technical Management
o 48bit CRC patent Issue
o Review of Action Items
MINUTES
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1) Administrivia
The minutes of the December 7th and 14th Teleconferences were
approved.
2) IESG Nominations
There are 14 members currently on the IESG. This number will remain
constant through the next IESG realignment. The Internet,
Applications, and Operations Areas each have two IESG members. The
IESG agreed that only one of the two directors should stand for
re-nomination at one time. The IESG established the following
rotation for IESG member selection.
Position This year Next year
Chair Phill Gross
Standards Dave Crocker --
Applications Russ Hobby Erik Huizer
Internet Stev Knowles Dave Piscitello
Phil Almquist
Management -- Chuck Davin
Operations Phill Gross(*) Bernard Stockman
Routing -- Bob Hinden
Security -- Steve Crocker
Service Apps empty (*) --
Transport Dave Borman(*) --
User Services -- Joyce Reynolds
(*) Open positions
Three IESG members intend to resign their position at the end of
their terms, Philip Almquist, and Dave Borman. Phill Gross will not
seek re-selection for the Operational Requirements Area but will
seek re-selection as chairman. Dave Crocker, Steve Knowles, and Russ
Hobby presented themselves as candidates to continue in their
respective positions.
The IESG choose Erik Huizer as the non-voting IESG liaison person to
the nomination committee.
ACTION: Gross -- Communicate to the IETF the list of IESG positions to
be filled during the next selection process and the names of the IESG
members who wish to be considered for continuation in their present
positions.
The question was raised of whether the IESG chairman was
automatically a member of the IAB. This and other questions about
liaison between the IAB and IESG were distilled into a strawman
POSITION.
STRAWMAN: The IESG chair shall be one of two IESG members serving as
liaison members of the IAB. Two IAB members should be designated to
act as liaison members of the IESG for the purpose of offering
architectural input to IESG deliberations.
ACTION: Gross -- Communicate the proposed liaison arrangements with the
IAB and work towards common understanding of the mechanisms for
communication between the IAB and IESG.
3) Technical Management Issues
o Feedback to the IETF on ROAD Proposals
Stev Knowles wrote a draft note to the IETF which argues the case
for an IETF selection of a single next IP version. This note was
created to solicit community consensus on the concept of a single
solution before making the difficult decision to pick one solution.
The IESG discussed this approach and did not reach any firm
conclusions. Discussion will be continued on the mailing list.
o 48 Bit CRC Patent Issue
The IESG has been asked by the PPP Extensions Working Group for
guidance on the acceptance of a proposal to the Working Group to use
a particular CRC algorithm. The IESG and IAB had previously
discussed this issue and agreed that proprietary technology can be
use in Internet Standards provided it is made available on a
non-discriminatory basis for a reasonable fee. The Working Group is
free to reject any patented proposal when other usable alternatives
are available.
ACTION: Vaudreuil Communicate this understanding of the use of patented
technology in Internet Protocols to the PPP Extensions Working Group.
o Protocol Approval Process
The IESG further defined its procedures for approving protocols.
POSITION: A protocol will pass the IESG if nine members vote
affirmatively. This balloting will be done by email and during
regularly scheduled teleconferences. If there is a single "discuss"
vote, or an inadequate number of "yes" votes, a teleconference
discussion will be scheduled.
4) Protocol Actions
o FTP/FTAM Gateway Specification
The IESG discussed the FTP/FTAM Gateway and the one question raised
was of constituency. The IESG was satisfied that the initial
implementation experience and emerging FTAM services demonstrated
a need for a common protocol.
ACTION: Vaudreuil -- Send out the Protocol Action for FTP/FTAM to
Proposed Standard.
o Privacy Enhanced Mail
Several issues were raised with respect to the reliance on patented
technology in the PEM protocol. While these issues have been
addressed in the course of deliberating on PEM, there was a desire
to have their results of these discussions documented.
PEM relies upon patented technology, RSA public key cryptography.
The IAB deliberated at length about the licensing requirements for
patented technology and the IESG would like to review these
deliberations. A letter explaining the licensing was submitted by
RSA to the IAB. The IESG has not seen this letter and wants to
insure the terms are reasonable and that the letter gets published
as an Informational RFC.
ACTION: Coya -- Get a copy of the letter sent by RSA to the IAB on the
license terms for RSA technology in PEM from Braden and make it
available to the IESG for review.
Free software based on the PEM specifications may be useful without
any license. A key must be attained at some cost to sign, encrypt,
and decrypt messages, but authenticated messages can be verified
without any licensing.
ACTION: SCrocker -- Send to the IESG a summary of the functionality of
PEM and the requirements in terms of licensing for each of the PEM
functions, Encryption, Decryption, Signing, and Authenticating.
The PEM protocol specifies one suite of algorithms, viz DES for
symmetric key encryption, RSA for asymmetric key signature and
key exchange, and MD2 and MD5 for cryptographic hash. The
specification leaves the door open to several additional suites.
The IESG questioned this approach because the sender and the
receiver must use the same suite for interoperability to be
attained. Steve Crocker addressed the question to the IESG's
satisfaction by noting that multiple suites are likely to occur
because the U.S. Government is pushing for the use of the Digital
Signature Algorithm (DSA) and Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) instead
of RSA and MD5, and that export laws prohibit the general export
of systems using DES for encryption but permit the general export
of systems using weaker encryption algorithms such as RC4 with
keys limited to 40 bits. These complications are unfortunate,
but this protocol does not add any additional complexity to the
situation.
PEM originated in a closed IRTF Research Group, the Privacy and
Security Research Group. An IETF Working Group was chartered to
review the initial work of the PSRG subject to the open ietf process.
This review resulted in significant changes to the specification.
o Point to Point Protocol MIBs
Several MIBS were submitted to the IESG for consideration as
Proposed Standards. These have not been reviewed by the Network
Management Directorate and were referred to them.
ACTION: Davin -- Begin a review of the PPP mibs in the Network
Management Directorate.
o SUN NFS/RPC
The IESG previously approved moving these protocols to Informational
status. Since that time, however, SUN Microsystems has initiated
discussion with the IESG to re-enter these protocols into the
standards track. The IESG decided to hold the movement of these
protocols to Informational until the situation becomes more clear.
ACTION: Vaudreuil -- Do not sent the SUN NFS/RPC protocol action moving
these protocols to Informational. Schedule a discussion on these
protocols for January 21st if no progress is made.
o SMTP Extensions
The SMTP Extensions for 8 bit transport have been submitted to the
IESG for re-consideration as a Proposed Standard. The document
originally submitted to the IESG has been split into several smaller
documents with significant technical changes.
ACTION: Vaudreuil - Issue a Last Call for the SMTP Extensions
Documents.
o Network Time Protocol
There was nothing to report on the status of the NTP Version 3
review.
5) Working Group Actions
o IP Security
The IP Security charter was accepted in principle. In the absence
of a Security architecture, the IESG requests a statement in the
charter about how this relates to other IP security efforts in the
IETF including Common Authentication Technology, US Department of
Defense IP Security Option and the Commercial IP Security Option.
After the changes are made the IESG will reconsider the Working
Group proposal.
ACTION: SCrocker - With the Working Group chairs, revise the IP
Security charter to address the relationship with current work Add a
line to the charter addressing how this relates to other working
groups.
o Simple IP Protocol
The IESG reviewed the SIP charter. The milestones appear aggressive
and some concern was expressed that the December delivery dates were
not realistic for implementations.
ACTION: Vaudreuil - Contact the chairs of the SIP Working Group and
confirm the milestones listed in the charter.
Appendix -- Action Items Taken
--------
ACTION: Gross -- Communicate to the IETF the list of IESG positions to
be filled during the next selection process and the names of the IESG
members who wish to be considered for continuation in their present
positions.
ACTION: Gross -- Communicate the proposed liaison arrangements with the
IAB and work towards common understanding of the mechanisms for
communication between the IAB and IESG.
ACTION: Vaudreuil Communicate this understanding of the use of patented
technology in Internet Protocols to the PPP Extensions Working Group.
ACTION: Vaudreuil -- Send out the Protocol Action for FTP/FTAM to
Proposed Standard.
ACTION: Coya -- Get a copy of the letter sent by RSA to the IAB on the
licence terms for RSA technology in PEM from Braden and make it
available to the IESG for review.
ACTION: SCrocker -- Send to the IESG a summary of the functionality of
PEM and the requirements in terms of licensing for each of the PEM
functions, Encryption, Decryption, Signing, and Authenticating.
ACTION: Davin -- Begin a review of the PPP mibs in the Network
Management Directorate.
ACTION: Vaudreuil -- Do not sent the SUN NFS/RPC protocol action moving
these protocols to Informational. Schedule a discussion on these
protocols for January 21st if no progress is made.
ACTION: Vaudreuil - Issue a Last Call for the SMTP Extensions
Documents.
ACTION: SCrocker - With the Working Group chairs, revise the IP
Security charter to address the relationship with current work Add a
line to the charter addressing how this relates to other working
groups.
ACTION: Vaudreuil - Contact the chairs of the SIP Working Group and
confirm the milestones listed in the charter.
