CELLAR

Summary

The CELLAR Working Group met to discuss the status of active drafts, review proposed updates to the working group charter, and determine the progression strategy for upcoming specifications. Key outcomes included a plan to advance the codec specification, an agreement to submit new EBML and Matroska specifications as individual drafts pending the charter update, and an action plan to refine the draft charter text on GitHub.

Key Discussion Points

Document Status

Matroska Tags (draft-ietf-cellar-tags): This document is currently in the RFC Editor queue.
Matroska Joint Draft / Codec Specification (draft-ietf-cellar-codec):
- Steve Lhomme submitted the -19 revision (draft-ietf-cellar-codec-19).
- Charles Eckel noted that the comments from the Gen-ART and IANA reviews have been addressed.
- Spencer Dawkins pointed out an outstanding Security Directorate (SEC) review assigned to Michael Jones. Charles Eckel proposed moving the document forward to the IESG telechat rather than waiting, as another review will naturally be triggered during that stage. Charles Eckel agreed to advance the document.
FFV1 Version 4 (draft-ietf-cellar-ffv1):
- Jérôme Martinez noted that this specification is currently expired.
- Jérôme Martinez plans to merge a couple of outstanding Pull Requests (PRs) and submit a new revision before the next meeting.
Matroska Chapters Codec Specification (draft-ietf-cellar-chapters): This document remains waiting for updates.

Charter Update and New Work

Spencer Dawkins presented the draft text for a proposed working group charter update. The updated charter includes:
- The ongoing work on the Matroska chapters codec specification (draft-ietf-cellar-chapters).
- The FFV1 version 4 video codec specification (draft-ietf-cellar-ffv1).
- An update to the Matroska media container specification (often referred to as "Update 1" or "V5").
- A new element for the EBML specification (draft-ietf-cellar-ebml) to document when an element has been added to an EBML-based specification.
Draft Submission Strategy:
- Steve Lhomme had previously inquired about submitting the first of these new drafts.
- Robert (co-chair, not present) had suggested having draft charter text in place before formal submission/adoption.
- To avoid a race condition with the rechartering process, Charles Eckel suggested submitting the new documents as individual drafts (using draft-<author>-cellar-... format) rather than official working group drafts. Once the charter is formally updated, the working group can formally adopt them. The group agreed to this decoupled approach.
- Steve Lhomme has completed approximately 80% of the EBML schema update individual draft (expected to be about one page plus boilerplate).
Charter Scope and Extensibility:
- Jérôme Martinez observed that the working group's focus is transitioning from standardizing legacy specifications (which characterized the last decade of work) to defining new extensible features and addressing known gaps. Jérôme Martinez shared GitHub issues mapping out planned Matroska "V5" capabilities to help define this scope.
- Charles Eckel suggested exploring whether the charter could be written more generally—covering "extensions and additions" to these formats rather than listing highly specific document deliverables. This would allow the working group to adopt future extension drafts without requiring a formal recharter each time. Spencer Dawkins asked the group to consider this model, noting that they should evaluate how permissive the current IESG is regarding open-ended charter text.

Decisions and Action Items

Decisions

Approval of Minutes: The minutes of the previous meeting were approved without correction.
Document Advancement: draft-ietf-cellar-codec will be moved forward to the IESG.
Individual Submissions: New specifications for the Matroska update and EBML schema update will be published initially as individual drafts rather than working group drafts to avoid delaying development during the rechartering process.

Action Items

Charles Eckel: Advance draft-ietf-cellar-codec to the next stage in the Datatracker.
Spencer Dawkins: Move the draft charter text to the CELLAR Working Group GitHub repository to facilitate collaboration.
Jérôme Martinez: Merge outstanding PRs and submit a new draft of the expired draft-ietf-cellar-ffv1 before the next meeting.
Steve Lhomme / Jérôme Martinez: Submit the EBML schema update and Matroska "Update 1" specifications as individual drafts.

Next Steps

The working group will review and wordsmith the draft charter text on GitHub.
The co-chairs and Area Director (Charles Eckel) will collaborate on whether to generalize the charter to cover future format extensions or maintain a strictly milestone-based deliverable structure.

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