Subject: [tcpm] TCPM rechartering discussion

From: "SCHARF, Michael" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:19:59 +0100

Dear all,

The current TCPM charter https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/tcpm/charter/
includes some outdated text. Most notably, the "Specific Goals"
mentioned in the charter are not up to date. Also, the current charter
requires IESG approval of every new milestone.

Therefore, the chairs think that it would make sense to recharter TCPM
in order to clean up the completed goals and to make it easier to manage
future milestones. Please find below a first draft for a new charter
text. The intention is a minor modification that does not to affect the
overall scope of the working group.

We would highly appreciate comments or suggestions.

Best regards

Michael (TCPM co-chair)

TCP Maintenance and Minor Extensions (tcpm)
-------------------------------------------

Description of Working Group: ***DRAFT***

TCP is currently the Internet's predominant transport protocol. 
To maintain TCP's utility the IETF has regularly updated both 
the protocol itself and the congestion control algorithms 
implemented by the protocol that are crucial for the stability 
of the Internet. These changes reflect our evolving 
understanding of transport protocols, congestion control and new 
needs presented by an ever-changing network. The TCPM WG provides
a venue within the IETF to work on these issues. The WG 
serves several purposes: 

* The WG mostly focuses on maintenance issues (e.g., bug 
fixes) and modest changes to the protocol and algorithms 
that maintain TCP's utility, including incremental enhancements
of the congestion control mechanisms.

* The WG is a venue for moving current TCP specifications 
along the standards track (as community energy is available 
for such efforts). 

* The focus of the working group are minor extensions to TCP
algorithms and mechanisms. In cases where these are
directly applicable to other transports (e.g. SCTP or DCCP),
the mappings to other transports may be specified alongside
that for TCP, but significant additions and changes to other
transports are not in scope.

TCPM is the working group within the IETF that handles small TCP
changes, or minor extensions to TCP algorithms and mechanisms. While
fundamental changes to TCP or its congestion control algorithms
(e.g., departure from loss-based congestion control) should be brought
through TCPM, it is expected that such large changes will be handled
by other working groups or require additional reviews, in particular by
the IRTF Congestion Control Research Group (ICCRG).

TCP's congestion control algorithms are the model followed by 
alternate transports (e.g., SCTP and (in some cases) DCCP),
which are handled for instance by the Transport Area WG (tsvwg).
The IETF has recently worked on several documents 
about algorithms that are specified for multiple protocols 
(e.g., TCP and SCTP) in the same document. Which WG shepherds 
such documents will determined on a case-by-case 
basis. In any case, the TCPM WG will remain in close contact 
with other relevant WGs working on these protocols to ensure 
openness and stringent review from all angles. 

New TCPM milestones that fall within the scope specified within
the charter can be added after approval of the working group and the
responsible Area Director.