Subject: RE: [newtrk] Comments on draft-klensin-newtrk-std-repurposing-00.txt

From: "Christian Huitema" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 09:57:10 -0700

> >One of the reasons I am a fan of the "slash and burn" model (a.k.a.
> >exactly one standards track maturity level) is that it will make much
> >of this discussion irrelevant. If all standards track RFCs were
simply
> >called Standards, then building the list of RFCs that constitute a
> >single STD would be much less of a puzzle (and btw the RFC Editor
> >already does it, but because of our multiple levels, gets most of
them,
> >including TCP and SMTP, wrong).
> 
> Fully agree. Simplicity would be a very helpful thing here.

I like the simplicity. It pretty much matches the industry perception
anyhow: once a document is published as a standard track RFC, we are
pretty much expected to implement it, whatever the process says. 

But there is a practical problem. In many cases, documents are cleaned
up a lot during the move from PS to DS. Ambiguities in the spec are
reworded; arcane options are removed, etc. Can we achieve the same
result with a single-stage process?

-- Christian Huitema 

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From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 10:45:29 -0700

Folks,

CH> But there is a practical problem. In many cases, documents are cleaned
CH> up a lot during the move from PS to DS. Ambiguities in the spec are
CH> reworded; arcane options are removed, etc. Can we achieve the same
CH> result with a single-stage process?

1. Is there an important benefit in having the cleaned-up document come
out at a new (higher) level, rather than coming out at the one level
used for all "versions" of the specification?

2. Is there a benefit in having the IETF take official notice that a
specification has attained success?  That is, to mark those
specifications which have gained sufficient community use to be worth
marking explicitly?  (I think the answer is yes.)

That is why I think that we should distinguish between work that is
internal to the IETF -- namely development (PS) versus activity that is
external to it -- namely adoption (FS).

We do not, currently, make an effort to track whether a specification is
successful or not.

It would help both us and the rest of the community to have an official
assessment of the maturity of a specification, measured by community
acceptance.

d/
--
 Dave Crocker <dcrocker-at-brandenburg-dot-com>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <www.brandenburg.com>
 Sunnyvale, CA  USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>

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