On 2/5/26 11:37 AM, Guus der Kinderen wrote: We've already done this to some extent (e.g., SASL2). IMHO, the IETF is the ideal (and perhaps only) place to make changes to the core and IM specs. If the XSF wanted to take back maintenance of core and IM, we'd need to talk with our IETF friends. It's not clear to me yet whether we'd need a WG in order to do this work. That might depend on the scope of changes and it's something we'd need to discuss with the relevant IETF area directors. Those are all good reasons to do such work at the IETF. Although they are indeed secondary, we should recognize that those benefits were one reason we moved the core/IM specs from the JSF to the IETF in 2002 and 2003. The benefits included the ability for companies building Jabber servers (at that time primarily Jabber Inc., which drove the standardization effort) to better market their products to "serious" customers like governments and large corporations. So this is still something to consider, I think. Would moving all protocol development (even core/IM) from the IETF to the XSF remove an important selling point for XMPP vendors? I estimate that I worked 2000+ hours on RFCs 3920/3921 in 2003 and 2004. The workload was less significant when revising 3920/3921 to produce 6120/6121, but I didn't measure it very carefully. This is something we can manage. IMHO one of the goals would be to create a minimal spec or set of specs for core and IM, thus avoiding scope creep. That's why we're having this discussion now, I suppose - doing the work on core and IM through the IETF has led us to a place where it's not easy to change those specs. That's one of the costs of handing change control over to the IETF. On the other hand, the fact that it's taken us 20+ years to feel this pain might indicate that the tradeoffs were worth making at that time (I still recall the concerns that DJ Adams and others had about IETF standardization and loss of control). However, at this point we have just enough institutional memory that we can contemplate a renewed IETF initiative. That won't always be the case, so maybe now is the time to try it. This is a legitimate concern - some IETF WGs run out of energy and it's not pretty (I had to shut down a few WGs like that when I was an area director). This is part of the discussion with the IETF. In general, if we can demonstrate that we have enough people who want to do this work, then it shouldn't be a distraction from MIMI or other current initiatives. Even more explicitly, at the IETF such an objection is not taken seriously. This is why we were able to form the XMPP WG even though the SIMPLE WG was already in existence. Yes. I'm too far away from current work to have clear thoughts on this. But I would recommend creating a stripped-down spec that includes as few features as possible, so that going forward it's easier to work on extensions at the XSF. Maybe? If it's helpful, I would consider coming out of retirement to assist with this work. I see a few things: 1. Identify the scope of work. This is useful whether we do the work at the IETF or negotiate with the IETF to take back maintenance of core and IM. 2. Identify who has the time and energy to work on the specs, provide feedback on the specs, and implement the specs. 3. Have an initial, exploratory conversation with the relevant IETF area directors. Peter