Subject: [newtrk] guestion 5 for newtrk

From: [email-masked] (Scott Bradner)
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2004 08:52:04 -0400 (EDT)

finally (for now) a question related to the last one

historically, the RFC Editor has published IETF and non-IETF documents
(not the least because the RFC Editor predates the IETF by quite a few
years)

many people, me included, have felt that this dual role has been good for
the Internet because it provides a way to get Internet-related ideas
published without too much barrier (the RFC Editor does filter submissions
for relevance, clarity and technical validity) it also provides a way for
people who have ideas that were not supported in IETF working groups or
which run counter to ideas adopted by IETF working groups can publish
those ideas.

but this view has been questioned from time to time with some people
feeling that the RFC Editor should just be the publication arm of the IETF
and not be publishing independent submissions (except for maybe April
fools day RFCs)

Assuming that we could reach consensus on a way to clearly distinguish
documents that have gone through reasonable IETF review (working group
discussion for example) from independently submitted documents (the
subject of the last question) should the RFC Editor continue to publish
independent (non-IETF) submissions?

Scott
.
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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2004 12:20:10 -0400

> subject of the last question) should the RFC Editor continue to
> publish independent (non-IETF) submissions?

I think this is a bit too broad a question to be meaningful.  

Is it useful for IETF to occasionally have non-IETF submissions
published as RFCs? (for instance, to publish well-written and 
apparently accurate specifications of widely-used protocols that were
developed outside of IETF)  yes.

Is it useful for there to be a path to publishing documents that
are easily confused with IETF standards (either by a reader of
the document or by a reader of a citation to the document), or which 
are widely believed to have IETF endorsement, but which do not receive
signficant review for technical soundness or relevance?  no.
.
newtrk resources:_____________________________________________________
web user interface: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/newtrk.html
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