Subject: Proposal: explain MEGACO protocol RFC status explicitly

From: Pekka Pessi <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 15:34:35 +0200

Hello all,

        The current MEGACO/H.248 draft, draft-ietf-megaco-protocol-07.txt,
        is still ongoing work. AFAIK the protocol is still incomplete and
        largely unimplementable. A reference implementation has just been
        started.  The working group is planning to change the protocol
        semantics and transport syntax. There would be no point in
        publishing the document as an RFC, if this were an IETF-only project

        As I have understood, publishing incomplete recommendations is
        business as usual in ITU-T due to practical reasons. The ITU-T
        recommendations must be approved using time-consuming formal
        process, including a ballot. So, the finalized ITU-T specification
        actually consists of a recommendation document together with an
        Implementor's Guide correcting the errors and omissions in the
        recommendation document. IG may contain major changes that are
        incompatible with the published recommendation document.  Also, when
        referring to a ITU-T specification, like H.323v2, people are
        actually referring to the recommendation together with the
        respective implementor's guide.

        The ITU-T process is (or at least should be) familiar to the
        developers using ITU-T recommendations. However, in Internet
        community people are expecting that the RFC is not just a snapshot
        of an on-going work. They don't anticipate that there is a companion
        document possibly changing the base protocol in every turn.

Proposal

        I propose that the MEGACO RFC should contain a paragraph explaining
        the status of the text, ie. that the protocol will be changed by an
        Implementors' Guide published soon. The MEGACO RFC should also
        recommend that any reference to it must also be accompanied with a
        note explaining the status of the RFC, and a reference to the
        Implementors' Guide.

        Best regards,
                                        Pekka Pesi

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From: Stephen Terrill <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 17:35:31 +0100

Hi,

Like Brian, I don´t agree with your summary of the status of the protocol.  Sometimes after stablisation there is considerations for ongoing development of a protocol (ie the next version in ITU-T terms, or a new RFC in IETF terms), or errata which is to be corrected.  So far I understood the agreed changes to be minor &/or clarification in nature.  My understanding of the implementors guide, if there is to be one, is that the information contained in that is to be lifted to version 2 of the protocol, if there is one.

I am not sure what is meant by the change in transport syntax.

Regards,

..//Steve