JSON Schema and IETF

Some of you may have heard rumblings about the IETF starting up a JSON Schema working group, and you may be wondering where that effort might stand with this community. Hopefully this post answers some of those questions for you.

A Brief History

All of the published JSON Schema were done as IETF Internet Drafts. IETF uses these I-Ds as a first step in the process toward official RFCs. In effect, they are specification proposals.

JSON Schema used this process as an unofficial publication avenue, but neither IETF nor we progressed the proposals to become an actual RFC. The RFC process didn't fit the rapid (relative to other specifications) iterative approach that was being used by the team, releasing multiple, versioned specifications. Thus, the team preferred to continue creating I-Ds.

After 2020-12 was released, the team began looking toward other publication options. In recent years, we had considered joining the OpenJS Foundation, part of the Linux Foundation, and even ECMA International. However those efforts never proved fruitful for various reasons that I won't get into here.

IETF Again

An unintended result of not progressing to RFC is that other RFCs and specifications from other organizations don't have an official identifier to use as a reference. That's not to say JSON Schema can't be used at all. To the contrary, we've maintained that the I-Ds are ready as-is and can be used in production systems. However not all RFC-level specifications (by IETF, ISO, etc.) can build on the technology in the "draft" state.

A few months ago, I was contacted by Henry Andrews, on of the co-authors of various published JSON Schema iterations. Apparently Lisa Dusseault, who has an interest in seeing JSON Schema as an RFC, had reached out to him about working through IETF to push for restarting the JSON Working Group or creating a new one for JSON Schema, and she wanted to make it an inclusive effort with the TSC here.

I introduced her to the rest of the team, and we've been in periodic discussions since.

The Plan Forward

For now, the JSON Schema TSC are watching the various threads that come through the IETF mailing list. So far, a JSON Schema Working Group Charter has been produced, and Lisa has created an initial draft for a proposal.

The draft is little more than an edit of 2020-12 at this point. It re-combines the two documents (Core and Validation) into one, the way it was for Draft 4, and some work to reorganize some of the sections to read more fluidly.

The JSON Schema TSC will be starting email chains in the IETF list to propose and discuss the various changes that we've made since 2020-12 but have yet to publish.

In the meantime, Lisa has advised to proceed with our plans to publish what we have, and we can figure out how that rolls in to the IETF effort when the time comes. At a minimum, it could provide direction for IETF.

We'll continue to keep everyone updated as developments continue.

Background photo by @bamagal on Unsplash.