RFC Editor and Published Standards
Statements of Work 2002-2003
This Statement of Work describes tasks to be performed by the USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI) for the Internet Society (ISOC), during the two calendar years 2002 and 2003. During this period, the RFC Editor team at ISI will continue to edit and publish "RFC" documents in accordance with the rules of RFC 2026 and with working agreements with the IESG, under the general direction of the IAB.
In the following list, work items A, B, and C define the core sub-tasks that are basic to the RFC Editor function covered by this agreement. Items D and E are highly-desirable improvements which will be performed to the extent possible within the available budget.
Under the general direction of the IAB, the RFC Editor team at ISI will perform the following functions.
A. Editing and publishing RFCs
A.1 Edit Submitted RFCs
The RFC Editor will perform the final editing on RFC documents, to maintain consistency of style as well as accuracy and completeness of content.
The RFC Editor will provide authors a final review period of at least 48 hours.
The RFC Editor will maintain a Web-accessible file ("RFC Editor Queue") specifying the stage of every document in the process of editing, review, and publication.
A.2 Publish RFCs Online
The RFC Editor will publish new RFCs online by installing them in the official RFC archive, which will be accessible via HTTP, FTP, or SMTP. The RFC Editor will also provide compressed aggregate files of subsets of the complete RFC series, accessible via HTTP or FTP.
The RFC Editor will maintain a mailing list and announce the newly published RFCs to other RFC repositories and to interested individuals.
A.3 Maintain the RFC Editor Web Site
The RFC Editor will maintain a set of web pages to provide online access to the RFC archive and indexes as well as information and explanation for RFC authors and readers.
These pages will include a search engine and index displays with several different views of the archive.
A.4 Maintain List of RFC Errata
The RFC Editor will maintain a list of errors found in published RFCs, accessible through HTTP and FTP.
A.5 Process Definition
The RFC Editor will periodically review the rules for RFC style and procedures, and formulate improvements as appropriate. Changes in style will be instituted only with the concurrence of the IESG.
The RFC Editor will produce a replacement RFC for RFC 2223, "Instructions to RFC Authors", incorporating clarifications of stylistic and procedural issues.
A.6 MIB Checking
The RFC Editor will use a MIB compiler to detect editorial errors in published MIBs.
B. Coordination
B.1. Coordinate with the IESGAs part of the standards process, the RFC Editor will coordinate closely with the IESG and IAB to ensure that the rules of RFC 2026 (or replacement) are followed. RFC Editor personnel will attend IAB, IESG, and IETF meetings, and other meetings upon request.
B.2 Coordinate with the IANA
The RFC Editor will coordinate with the IANA for assignment of protocol parameter values.
C. Indexing and Searching
C.1 Maintain Official RFC Index.
The RFC Editor will maintain the master index of all RFCs published to date and provide public HTTP, FTP, and SMTP access to this index.
C.2 Maintain Official Internet Protocol Standards List
The RFC Editor's web site will provide the current official list of Internet protocol standards. The RFC Editor will periodically publish this list as an RFC, STD 1.
C.3 RFC Summaries
The RFC Editor will publish a summary of RFCs in each range of 100.
D. Early RFC's
The RFC Editor will continue to work on the RFC-Online project, to add to the online archive the RFCs in the range 1 - 800. This work will be lower priority than editing and publishing new RFCs.
E. Extended Capabilities
Subject to budgetary limits, the RFC Editor will perform as many as possible of the following items. The RFC Editor will seek input from the IAB and IESG regarding priorities among items or possible alterations of this list.
E.1 RFC Editor Web Page Improvements
The RFC Editor will improve the quality and augment the contents of its web pages, to provide more information and to aid for new users trying to understand the RFC Editor function and the status of particular RFCs.
The RFC Editor will also enrich the web pages for experienced users. This will include some indication of relevant errata entries for specific RFCs.
E.2 Improvement of Index Quality
The RFC Editor will continue the effort to improve the quality of the archival RFC information base, and in particular the RFC index, developing and using a variety of tools.
One useful improvement would systematize and improve the quality of the keywords used to search for RFCs. This is potentially a huge task, so we will look for ways to efficiently perform updates that have significant impact.
The RFC Editor will provide an XML-based version of the RFC index.
E.3 New RFC Formatting Mechanisms
RFCs are normally submitted as .txt files, edited into nroff for publication, and published as formatted .txt files. The RFC Editor will experiment with possible new formatting mechanisms for submission, editing, and/or publication of RFCs, including XML.
The RFC Editor will make available on its Web pages more information and helpful tools for formatting RFCs on different platforms.
The RFC Editor will adopt, where possible, tools that can be used to mechanically verify the correctness of formal language text (e.g., ABNF) that is included within RFCs.
E.4 PDF Versions of all RFCs
The RFC Editor will create a complete .pdf version of the RFC archive.
E.5 Improved Indexing Facilities
The RFC Editor will develop and/or adopt new Web-based indexing capabilities to better explicate the sometimes confusing and often complex interrelationships of RFCs in the same topic area.
E.6 Current MIB Repository
Subject to resource availability and with agreement of the IESG and IAB, the RFC Editor will maintain an online repository of the corrected values of MIBs that have been published in RFCs.
