Subject: RE: [newtrk] What we have learned so far about retiring standards

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 19:24:21 -0800

Why not just retire everything and see what people squeak over?

I don't think this is about persuading anyone to stop using old protocols.
The only thing that is being changed is that the IETF is saying 'the IETF is
no longer maintaining these specifications'.

There are plenty of folk using antique technology. There are still folk who
have PDP series machines in their basement and work on them. But that does
not mean that they are being supported by the standards community or that
they should be. 

You cannot be a technology organization and an antiquarian organization at
the same time.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] 
> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Paul 
> Hoffman / VPNC
> Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 9:13 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: [newtrk] What we have learned so far about retiring standards
> 
> 
> Hi again. I'll start off by saying that I was never terribly fond of 
> this work, but the responses that Eliot has gotten so far have been 
> pretty instructive. A few things pop out:
> 
> - We don't have a clear definition of when something should be retired
> 
> - We haven't explained well who this effort is supposed to benefit
> 
> - Making something "historic" means very different things to 
> different people
> 
> - We don't (can't?) have a clear picture when people will stop 
> implementing old protocols
> 
> Maybe much of the value we wanted to get from this exercise could be 
> gotten from forming a list of RFCs that we say we believe no further 
> work will be done on. The presence on the list could be marked in 
> rfc-index.txt and rfcxx00.txt.
> 
> --Paul Hoffman, Director
> --VPN Consortium
> .
> newtrk resources:_____________________________________________________
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> 
.
newtrk resources:_____________________________________________________
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---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 23:16:24 -0500

> no longer maintaining these specifications'.

yes.  yes.  yes.

whether the specification is being maintained is one or the two or 
three most significant bits of information that we need to convey.  
it's also a bit that none of our current classifications convey very 
well.

rather than reclassifying specifications periodically, perhaps what we 
really should be doing is periodically issuing "updates" for those 
specifications that are actively being maintained.  an update could 
consist of an applicability statement, errata, clarifications, 
implementation reports, and implementation notes.    or the update 
could be a revised specification, or a pointer to a replacement 
specification.  or if the original specification were still in use, but 
little had changed about how it is used, the update wouldn't need to 
say much.

that way, the way that you'd determine whether a specification were 
being maintained would be to look at the date of the latest update.  
the absence of a recent update would be an indication that the 
specification were not being maintained.

Keith

.