TCP Maintenance and Minor Extensions (tcpm)
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 Charter

 Current Status: Active

 Chairs:
     Michael Scharf <michael.scharf@hs-esslingen.de>
     Michael Tüxen <tuexen@fh-muenster.de>
     Yoshifumi Nishida <nsd.ietf@gmail.com>

 Transport Area Directors:
     Martin Duke <martin.h.duke@gmail.com>
     Zaheduzzaman Sarker <Zaheduzzaman.Sarker@ericsson.com>

 Transport Area Advisor:
     Martin Duke <martin.h.duke@gmail.com>

 Mailing Lists:
     General Discussion: tcpm@ietf.org
     To Subscribe:       https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tcpm
     Archive:            https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/tcpm/

Description of Working Group:

  TCP is currently the Internet's predominant transport protocol. TCPM
  is the working group within the IETF that handles small TCP changes,
  i.e., minor extensions to TCP algorithms and protocol mechanisms.
  The TCPM WG serves several purposes:

  * The WG mostly focuses on maintenance issues (e.g., bug fixes) and
  modest changes to the protocol, algorithms, and interfaces that
  maintain TCP's utility.

  * The WG is a venue for moving current TCP specifications along the
  standards track (as community energy is available for such efforts).

  * The WG maintains Multipath TCP (MPTCP) and is a home for minor
  MPTCP enhancements including updates to the existing multipath
  congestion control.

  * The focus of the working group is TCP. In cases where small
  changes are directly applicable to other transports (e.g., SCTP or
  DCCP), the mappings to other transports may be specified alongside
  that for TCP, but other significant additions and changes to other
  transports are not in scope.

  TCPM also provides a venue for standardization of incremental
  enhancements of TCP's standard congestion control. In addition,
  TCPM may document alternative TCP congestion control algorithms
  that are known to be widely deployed, and that are considered
  safe for large-scale deployment in the Internet. Changes of algorithms
  may require additional review by the IRTF Congestion Control
  Research Group (ICCRG). Fundamental changes to TCP or its congestion
  control algorithms (e.g., departure from loss-based congestion
  control) will be handled by other working groups or will require
  rechartering.

  TCP's congestion control algorithms are the model followed by
  other IETF transports (e.g., SCTP or DCCP), which are standardized in
  other working groups, such as the Transport Area WG (tsvwg). In the
  past, the IETF has worked on several documents about algorithms that
  are specified for multiple protocols (e.g., TCP and SCTP) in the
  same document. Which WG shepherds such documents will be determined
  on a case-by-case basis. In any case, the TCPM WG will remain in
  close contact with other relevant WGs working on these protocols to
  ensure openness and stringent review from all angles.

  New TCPM milestones that fall within the scope specified within the
  charter can be added after consensus on acceptance in the working
  group and approval by the responsible Area Director.

Goals and Milestones:
  Jun 2020 - Submit RFC793bis document to the IESG for publication as Internet Standard
  Aug 2021 - Submit RFC6937bis document to the IESG for publication as a Proposed Standard RFC
  Nov 2021 - Submit a document on modifying slow start to avoid large tail drops as a Proposed Standard RFC
  Dec 2021 - Submit specification of more accurate ECN feedback in TCP to the IESG for publication as a Proposed Standard RFC
  Jan 2022 - Submit document on adding Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to TCP Control Packets to the IESG for publication as Experimental RFC
  Nov 2022 - Submit document on a TCP Extended Data Offset Option to the IESG as a Proposed Standard RFC
  Done     - Submit document on a time-based fast loss detection algorithm for TCP to the IESG for publication as a Proposed Standard RFC
  Done     - Submit document on Retransmission Timeout Considerations as Best Current Practice RFC
  Done     - Submit document on TCP Control Block Interdependence to the IESG for publication as Informational RFC