Subject: A Modest Proposal abuot Internet Drafts as Reference Material

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 18:59:10 -0600 (MDT)

> From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>

> ...
> on the other hand, (and IMHO) making the I-D series permanently archived 
> will discourage folks from tossing out half-baked ideas and trying to
> get others to improve on them; and it will encourage folks who are just
> looking for a soapbox and can't get any community support for their ideas.

Is that concern consistent with the first 250 or 500 RFC's?  Weren't
the first RFC's more like current Internet-Drafts?

Also, it's hard for me to to believe that any of those arguing for any
position on this subject are so shy that they would be deterred by the
possibility that their words in an I-D will be slightly more easily found
than their far less carefully chosen words in mailing lists.

On the other hand, shielding I-D's from public criticism is part and parcel
of the steady evolution of the IETF into a professional standards body
(i.e. a body whose members' job descriptions count "member of the IETF" as
a major component, and I don't mean area directors or members of the IAB.)

So, a modest proposal: 
  - Eliminate Internet-Drafts. 
  - Give RFC numbers to all submissions to the IESG.  Any submissions
     that don't make the standards track are marked Informational.

As someone else observed, this would have the additional benefit of so
devaluing the cachet of "RFC" that much of that problem would be solved.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 22:34:19 -0400

> the first RFC's more like current Internet-Drafts?

it's not a valid analogy, because the ARPAnet community was much smaller 
than today's Internet development community.  also, access to the ARPAnet 
was limited to organizations meeting fairly narrow criteria (and by
other factors, such as economics), so there wasn't as much noise even
within that community.  finally, there wasn't a large user community
for RFCs back then, so they could be whatever they wanted to be.

nowdays there is so much going on (and so many half-baked ideas) that
we really do have a need to distinguish protocols that have had some
level of vetting and/or review from those that are just someone's idea.
this is partially because there are so many more protocols, and
partially because the population of people making proposals 
has grown faster than the clue level.  (and it takes more clues 
these days than it used to to develop a good proposal - these
days we need to worry about things like scalability and security.)

> than their far less carefully chosen words in mailing lists.

I'll concede that point.  but we are talking about making I-Ds more
visible/accessible than mailing list archives.

> of the steady evolution of the IETF into a professional standards body

criticizing I-Ds after they have expired hardly seems like something
that we want to encourage.

>      that don't make the standards track are marked Informational.

that would decrease the signal-to-noise ratio.  we need to increase it.

Keith