Internet Draft Paul Hoffman draft-hoffman-what-is-ietf-03.txt Internet Mail Consortium August 9, 2000 Scott Bradner Expires in six months Harvard University Defining the IETF Status of this memo This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. 1. Introduction Many RFCs refer to "the IETF". Many important IETF documents speak of the IETF as if it was an already-defined entity. However, no IETF document really defines well what the IETF is. This document gives a more concrete definition of "the IETF" as it understood today. 2. Defining the IETF BCP 9 ("The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", RFC 2026) [BCP 9], the primary document that describes the Internet standards process, never defines the IETF. As described in BCP 11 ("The Organizations Involved in the IETF Standards Process", RFC 2028) [BCP 11], the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is an open international community of network designers, operators, vendors and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. It is important to note that the IETF is not a corporation: it is an unincorporated, freestanding organization. The IETF is partially supported by the Internet Society (ISOC). ISOC is a US-based non-profit membership corporation with thousands of individual and corporate members throughout the world who pay membership fees to join. The Internet Society provides many services to the IETF, including insurance and some financial and logistical support. As described in BCP 11, Internet standardization is an organized activity of the ISOC, with the ISOC Board of Trustees being responsible for ratifying the procedures and rules of the Internet standards process. However, the IETF is not a formal subset of ISOC; for example, one does not have to join ISOC to be a member of the IETF. There is no board of directors for the IETF, no formally signed bylaws, no treasurer, and so on. The structure of the IETF (its leadership, its working groups, the definition of IETF membership, and so on) are described in detail in BCP 11. Thus, when RFCs say "the IETF", they are describing the group that acts in accordance with BCP 9 and BCP 11. 3. Security Considerations All IETF protocols must describe the security aspects of the environment in which they will be used. Also, the IETF has a Security Area which discusses the security aspects of IETF protocols. However, descriptive documents such as this one do not affect the security of the Internet. A. References [BCP 9] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", RFC 2026, October 1996. [BCP 11] Hovey, R., and Bradner, S., "The Organizations Involved in the IETF Standards Process", RFC 2028, October 1996. B. Editors' Addresses Paul Hoffman Internet Mail Consortium 127 Segre Place Santa Cruz, CA 95060 USA phoffman@imc.org Scott Bradner Harvard University 29 Oxford St Cambridge MA 02138 sob@harvard.edu