[CESG] CCSDS update to CFDP

[Scott, Keith L.]

Greetings,

As you may know, CCSDS requires periodic updating of existing specifications.  CFDP is currently up for review, and I'd like to start the process of forming a CCSDS WG to do this.  Formally this will result in a Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) meeting at the next CCSDS meeting.  An excerpt from the CCSDS Procedures manual<http://public.ccsds.org/publications/archive/A02x1y3.pdf> concerning the activities of BoFs is:

2.3.4 BIRDS-OF-A-FEATHER GROUPS
The sole purpose of a Birds-Of-a-Feather group (BOF) is to do the necessary work to form a
WG. The work of the BOF is to articulate the technical concept, usually in the form of a brief
white paper, draft a charter for the proposed WG, appoint someone who is able to be chair,
and demonstrate that resources can be secured to do the work. BOFs are formed to get
support for establishing an eventual CCSDS WG, not to work the details of a particular
technical concept. In the process of determining the technical content of the proposed WG a
BOF is expected to identify and disclose any potential patent issues. Many BOFs do not turn
into WGs for a variety of reasons, such as lack of agreement by enough people on a focus for
the work, a lack of credible sponsorship, or a lack of alignment with the overall goals of
CCSDS.

Although many BOFs will be initiated from inside the CCSDS organization in order to
respond to concrete or prospective customer needs, anyone (from any organization and not
necessarily already affiliated with CCSDS) can start a BOF with a view towards convincing
an AD that the project is worthwhile and is a positive contribution to the work of CCSDS. A
face-to-face meeting is useful for this, although it is not necessary to wait for a meeting
opportunity to get some work done, such as setting up an informal mailing list, writing and
circulating a CCSDS concept paper that outlines the proposed technical scope of the work,
and starting to discuss a charter. BOF meetings have a very different tone than WG
meetings; their focus is to create a good charter with good milestones, and to prove that there
are enough resources potentially available to do the work needed in order to create standards.
At such time as a BOF feels that it has enough agreement to propose formation of a WG, it
must schedule a meeting with an AD to present its case. The AD makes the initial
determination as to whether to advocate the work further, to recommend more BOF work on
the charter and resource plan, or to reject the proposal. If the AD recommends acceptance of
the proposal, the draft charter and resource plan, accompanied by a CCSDS concept paper
outlining its technical scope, is forwarded to the CESG for a decision. If the AD rejects the
proposal, the BOF can appeal to the CESG chairman for a wider hearing, or it can simply
dissolve. BOFs initiated from inside the CCSDS organization have a lifetime of no more
than one year.

To 'kick-start' the BoF, I've put some basic material on what might be done by a CFDP refresh WG on the CCSDS Wiki:
http://cwe.ccsds.org/fm/wiki/SitePages/SIS.aspx

Let's try using this as a way to identify issues to be addressed and start the work of the BoF.

NOTE: we can form the bof pretty asynchronously, but we should NOT actually start the work that the WG proposes to undertake.  So I view identifying what technical changes might be proposed to CFDP at a high level as OK (since we need to know how much work the WG is going to have to do) but let's not get into arguing fine details over how such might be done.


NOTE to CESG: Please redistribute this to people you think might have interest in the work.

                        --keith



Dr. Keith Scott                                                                                           Office: +1.703.983.6547
Principal Engineer, E535                                                                        kscott at mitre.org<mailto:kscott at mitre.org>
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Area Director, CCSDS<http://www.ccsds.org/> Space Internetworking Services<http://cwe.ccsds.org/sis/default.aspx>

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