Subject: Draft charter for working group

From: Abel Weinrib <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 17:49:59 -0400 (EDT)

Here is a copy of the draft charter for the working group Eve Schooler
and I are working towards starting related to conferencing over the
Internet.  We have made some modifications to the previous draft based
on discussion in the two Confctrl BOFs at the last IETF.  There appears
to be agreement that we should  focus first on "Multiparty Multimedia
Session Control" as an important component of an ultimate complete
architecture to support conferencing and related applications.

We would very much value any comments you have on this draft of the charter! 

Thanks a lot.

		--Abel Weinrib and Eve Schooler

===================

Working Group:
     Multiparty Multimedia Session Control (mmusic)

Chairs:
     Eve Schooler		<[email-masked]>
     Abel Weinrib		<[email-masked]>

Applications Area Director(s) 
     Erik Huizer		<[email-masked]>
     Brewster Kahle		<[email-masked]>
 
Mailing lists: 
     General Discussion:	[email-masked]
     To Subscribe:      	[email-masked]
     Archive:           	venera.isi.edu:confctrl/confctrl.mail

     Parent List:		[email-masked]
     To Subscribe:		[email-masked]

Description of Working Group:

The demand for Internet packet multimedia conferencing has arrived,
yet an infrastructure to support this demand is barely in place. 
Multimedia session control is one component of the infrastructure,
defined as the management and coordination of multiple sessions and
their multiple users in multiple media.  The Multiparty Multimedia
Session Control Working Group is chartered to design a "multimedia
session protocol" to perform these functions.  Such a protocol will
provide useful abstractions for the developers of multimedia
communications applications, and will enable interoperability
between different implementations of such applications.  

The Working Group will work to specify, implement and deploy the
session protocol within teleconferencing software used over the
Internet.  As a prerequisite to defining the session protocol, we
must determine requirements for the protocol.  Towards this end,
the Working Group will catalogue existing approaches to controlling
multimedia conferences, identify the requirements for providing
these services across the general Internet, and then define a
small, but relatively inclusive set of conference styles that are
most useful to support.  For instance, we anticipate the need to
support both loosely- and tightly-controlled sessions. 
Flexibility, scalability and security will be important design
goals. 

In addition, this Working Group will track the progress of other
efforts as they relate to multimedia conferencing, such as
directory services for cataloguing users and conferences, the RTP
and RTCP protocols developed by the Audio/Video Transport working
group, resource reservation and management at the network level,
and schemes for multicast address allocation.  Follow on work to
defining the session control protocol may include the integration
of these separate components into an overall conferencing
architecture. 

Goals and Milestones: 
 
   Mar 93 First BOF/Working Group meeting. Review and approve the Charter,
	  making any necessary changes.  Discuss existing prototypes,
	  the issues they raise, and the unifying themes.  Identify scope 
	  and functional requirements for this service.  Define
	  components of problem and outline a framework for the solution.  
	  
   Apr 93 Prepare a bibliography of current readings in this area.

   Apr 93 Hold an organizational telemeeting.  Assign writing tasks to
	  document terminology, issues and framework, mappings between 
	  conversation styles and underlying session protocols, and the
	  functional taxonomy.  

   May 93 Begin documenting a strawman protocol.

   Jul 93 First draft of specification to be completed.  Provide
	  information on motivation for this work, relevance to other
	  IETF efforts, Internet teleconferencing infrastructure assumptions, 
	  and protocol details.

   Sep 93 Review first draft document and determine necessary
   	  revisions.  Follow up discussion to occur on mailing list
	  and via teleconferences.

   Nov 93 Finalize revisions for a second draft.

   Dec 93 Make document an Internet Draft.  Continue revisions based
	  on comments received.  As proof of concept and to measure 
	  thoroughness, consistency and simplicity, begin implementation.

   Mar 94 Review final draft and submit to IESG for publication as an
	  RFC.