Contributing in IETF : where to start?

In one of my my earlier post 'India in IETF', I described India's contribution in IETF. In that post, I asked you to provide comments and suggestions on how we can improve the quality and quantity of India's contribution in IETF.

In multiple informal discussions, different people have pointed out that while they would like to contribute but they do not know how and where to start. So I decided to write this post to provide some information on the same.

First thing first. Do you know how IETF works? If not then you need to read through my previous post here on the same topic.

If you are reading this, I will assume that you know about the Areas and Working Groups in IETF. You need to identify the Working Group which interests you. It could be related to what you are currently working on or what you would be working on in near future or what you want to learn to expand your ever-growing knowledge. You can be interested in multiple Working Group at the same time.

So what next?

You go ahead and subscribe to the mailing list of each Working Group you are interested in. This is because most of the IETF technical work happens in mailing lists. How do you join a Working Group mailing list? You just need to send a mail to the Working Group mailing list with  'subscribe' in the subject line and body of the mail.

Now that you have joined the mailing list, you will start receiving mails sent by others. Read them to understand the discussion and people's point of view. If you feel like asking a question in any of the discussion, feel free to do that.

Scan all the Internet Drafts submitted to a working group. Pick one that interests you the most and read through it. While reading through it, take your time to understand the problem it is solving as well as the proposed solution. Note down all the questions you could not answer yourself. Also note down editorial changes like sentences which you think are not clear enough, incorrect spelling etc.. At the end of the reading if you think you have some questions and suggestions on a draft, do send it to the mailing list. One of the author will acknowledge your suggestions and will respond to them. In some cases, you will see that apart from authors other people also pitch in with their view on your suggestions. Finally all your suggestions will be addressed by authors. You can take a pat on your back because you have just helped enhancing the quality of a draft. Do this exercise with all the documents in the Working Group.

Please do not think that any question or suggestion you might have on a draft is a stupid one. You will know its worth only when you send it out on the mailing list. Also please do not get discouraged if nobody responds to your questions. Mostly this does not happen but if it does, do send your mail again. Also if your mail has some valid points, someone will surely reply.

What else?

You come across a problem which your customers are facing or a problem you see in a protocol you are working with or a problem you found when you were testing a protocol in a network configuration. You think that a solution to this problem does not exist.  You discuss this problem among your colleagues and come up with a solution. You are thinking that this solution will help in deployment. In such a case, you should send out a mail describing the problem on the relevant Working Group's mailing list. If others agree that such a problem exist, you should create a draft and submit it. You should then ask Working Group to review your draft. It is good to attend an IETF meeting to discuss this in the Working Group meeting as well as in the corridors of the meeting venue with as many people as possible. If the problem you are solving is a real problem, your draft will be accepted by the Working Group. It will then go through multiple rounds of review and will later become a RFC.

Just one suggestion from me. Please be patient when you have sent a mail on a mailing list. People might take some time to reply as they will be busy with their day-to-day work. But let me assure you that people do reply.

So what are you waiting for, go ahead and start contributing to make Internet better. Best of Luck!

How IETF works?

I illustrated India's contribution in IETF in my earlier 'India in IETF' post and ask you to provide comments and suggestions on how we can improve the quality and quantity of India's contribution in IETF.

In the past, during various informal discussions, people mentioned that they are not aware of how IETF works. I always pointed them to relevant links but I am sure not many have read through them. So I decided to give a brief run down on how IETF works in my own words. Please note that it is like a small crash course on this subject and if you want to get more information, please do go through the links posted at the end of this post.

IETF is a standard body that produces highly relevant technical documents which are used by people to design, develop, use and manage the Internet. IETF has organised its work in different Areas. At present, there are 8 active Areas in IETF. There are several Working Groups in each of these Areas. Each Working Group has a pre-defined charter that identifies the goals and milestones for the working group. There are currently more than 100 Working Groups in IETF. I will talk about the process of creating a Working Group in some future post.

Each Area is managed by one or more Area Directors (ADs) with the help of IESG (Internet Engineering Steering Group). IESG members are Area Directors who are selected by Nomination Committee. Each Working Group is managed by one or more Working Group Chair.

Most of the IETF work happens through mailing list. Each Working Group (WG) has its own mailing list. Anybody can subscribe to any Working Group's mailing lists for free and start contributing.

IETF produces RFCs (Request For Comments) which are implemented by various OEM vendors in their products to make Internet work. Authors write up a private draft which describe a specific problem and the proposed solution. Authors then submit their draft to the most relevant Working Group. Authors can post their draft to other relevant Working Groups as well. For example: A draft can be submitted to both PIM WG as well as L3VPN WG if the draft is related to both the Working Group. Working Group reviews all the proposals and accept those proposals on which Working Group like to work. These proposals are then submitted as IETF Internet Drafts. These drafts then go through extensive reviews in the Working Group. Once Working Group feels that a specific draft has gone through enough reviews, Working Group chair submit the draft to IESG. The draft goes through another review by IESG members and once it is approved by IESG, it is passed to RFC editor to convert it into a RFC.

The easiest way a person can contribute to a Working Group is by reviewing the various Internet Drafts submitted to that Working Group. Again, as mentioned above, its free. You just need to subscribe to the mailing list. This helps everybody as it enhances the quality of the drafts and in turn the output of IETF.

There are regular IETF face-to-face meetings which are organised three times a year. Two of these meetings usually happen in USA/Canada region while one meeting happens somewhere in rest-of-the-world. These meetings are as technical as you can think of. Each Working Group meets to discuss their on-going work. In these meetings, people discuss their current and future work, find co-authors, get feedback on their work and network with people.

For more information, please refer to the TAO and page setup for newcomers in IETF.

India in IETF

How has India faired in IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force)?

Some people may not be aware of what IETF is?

IETF is a standard body whose goal is to make the Internet work better. 

I have been participating in IETF on and off for couple of years. I was interested in finding out contribution trends in IETF. It was more to find out which company and which country is contributing to IETF. As part of this, I looked at India's contribution to IETF. When I say India's contribution, I am refering to contribution from people working in India.

In last couple of years, while I have seen an exponential increase in the contribution from India, I think it is still far from 'our best effort'. Let me share some statistics to prove my point:

1. Out of around 60 countries who has contributed in IETF, India's contribution keep us at 13th place.
2. Out of around 53 countries currently active in IETF, India comes at 9th place.
3. Out of around 9000 documents in IETF, only 180 documents (around 1.95%) has come from India.
4. Out of around 6700 RFCs created till now, only 72 RFCs (around 1.07%) has come from India.
5. Out of around 15700 authors in IETF, only 67 authors has come from India.
6. Out of around 100 working groups in IETF, authors from India are active only in 29 working groups.
7. As far as I know, till now, there has never been anybody from India who has been a working group chair or Area Director in IETF. 
8. India has never hosted an IETF meeting.

I agree that these statisitcs do not paint a rosy picture. To bring out the relative performance of India, I decided to see this data against some other country and choose China. I choose China for a very specific reason as China and India, both started contributing in IETF around the same time. Let us look at similar numbers for China:

1. Out of around 60 countries, China is at 4th place.
2. Out of around 53 countries currently active in IETF, China is at 2nd place.
3. Out of around 9000 documents in IETF, 583 documents (6.30%) has come from China.
4. Out of around 6700 RFCs created till now, 127 RFCs (1.88%) has come from China.
5. Out of around 15700 authors in IETF, only 337 authors has come from China.
6. Out of around 100 working groups in IETF, authors from China are active in more than 50 working groups.
7. China has hosted an IETF meeting. 

So based on the numbers, its clear that China's contribution in IETF is growing with far better rate than ours.

I just wanted to point out our (India) dismal standalone as well as relative performance in one of the leading standardize body (IETF).

In some future post, I will discuss what we, as individuals, as companies and as a country, should do to improve the quality and quantity of this participation. I would request people to think and post their suggestions on the same.

Credit:
All the IETF data mentioned in this post has been fetched from IETF statistics web page..