Subject: [codec] Protocol Action: 'Updates to the Opus Audio Codec' to Proposed Standard (draft-ietf-codec-opus-update-10.txt)

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2017 08:03:47 -0700

The IESG has approved the following document:
- 'Updates to the Opus Audio Codec'
  (draft-ietf-codec-opus-update-10.txt) as Proposed Standard

This document is the product of the Internet Wideband Audio Codec Working
Group.

The IESG contact persons are Adam Roach, Alexey Melnikov and Ben Campbell.

A URL of this Internet Draft is:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-codec-opus-update/

Technical Summary

  This document addresses minor issues that were found in the 
  specification of the Opus audio codec in RFC 6716. That RFC
  normatively specifies the Opus decode in the form of C code
  attached as appendix A.  The updates in this draft are primarily
  done as a series of small patches to that code.

Working Group Summary

   Jonathan Rosenberg, then WG chair, originally stated that 
   updates to RFC 6716 would be handled via the normal errata 
   process. However, after conferring with our ADs, he and the chairs 
   decided that handling these via a new draft would avoid any 
   questions about overriding WG consensus. That decision was
   announced by the chairs in 2013 with the first version of the draft. 
   Jonathan Rosenberg voiced his approval of it on the list afterwards, 
   and no one has raised an issue with it since then.

  The WG held the document open for some time to give people a 
  chance to find new issues, but the rate of new reports has dropped 
  off, and the last issue was reported in October. Thus there is 
  likely not much value in further postponing publication.

Document Quality

  The updates have been implemented in libopus 1.2, released 
  on 20 June 2017. They were available in pre-release versions 
  for testing purposes for nearly a year prior (several years, for 
  some of the changes). Currently they require a special option 
  to enable them at configuration time. The authors expect to 
  remove that option (enabling the updates by default) in a new 
  version of libopus once this document is published as an RFC. 
  Most users of libopus, which includes all of the major browsers, 
  Android, iOS, and many others, will then get the new behavior 
  once they upgrade. The authors of the Opus decoder in FFmpeg, 
  another open source implementation, have also stated their 
  intention to implement the updates in this draft.

  Mark Harris, Tina le Grand, and Jonathan Lennox all performed 
  detailed reviews. Mark Harris is a long time contributor to the 
  libopus open source project, with a deep familiarity with the 
  codebase and a long track record of finding bugs and issues with 
  new changes to it. Tina le Grand is the primary developer responsible 
  for Opus's integration into WebRTC for Chrome, and Jonathan Lennox
  is the primary developer responsible for Opus's integration into Vidyo's 
  products. Both have a number of contributions to the open source project 
  and are familiar with the design and implementation of Opus. All three 
  had a number of editorial suggestions, but identified no major issues 
  with any of the proposed fixes. Additional review was performed by 
  Ralph Giles, Michael Graczyk, Ron Lee, Felicia Lim, Gregory Maxwell, 
  and Jan Skoglund.

Personnel

  Document Shepherd: Timothy B. Terriberry
  Responsible Area Director: Ben Campbell