Subject: Re: Request for Review - draft-yevstifeyev-genarea-historic-01

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2011 07:57:53 -0700

Mykyta Yevstifeyev <evnikita2 at gmail dot com> wrote:

> I'm writing to request the review of
> draft-yevstifeyev-genarea-historic-01, that could be found here:
> http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-yevstifeyev-genarea-historic-01.txt

The document says:

2.1. Criteria for Historic RFCs

   If the RFC is replaced by another one, it SHALL be considered to be
   superseded.

   The RFC SHALL be considered to be obsolete if it meets the following
   criteria:

     a. It has been publicly available for at least 7 years;

     b. During this period of time the technology, described in this RFC
     has not been seen used in the Internet; or

     c. The technology defined in this RFC is not possible or is not
     advised to be used in the Internet because of its security issues,
     impact on its performance or any other reason.

I'd like to see some kind of guideline that the RFC should not be
considered obsolete solely because of security or performance concerns
in some particular, specific context.  For example, the fact that
vanilla FTP is not sufficiently secure for use in some applications
where high security is paramount is not a rationale for deprecating FTP
in all applications.

The phrase "or any other reason" seems unnecessarily open-ended, and may
invite abuse.

--
Doug Ewell | Thornton, Colorado, USA | http://www.ewellic.org
RFC 5645, 4645, UTN #14 | ietf-languages @ is dot gd slash 2kf0s

---

From: Mykyta Yevstifeyev <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2011 21:36:44 +0200

Doug,

2011/1/28 Doug Ewell <[email-masked]>

> where high security is paramount is not a rationale for deprecating FTP
In the case I mentioned as c the key words are 'is not possible or is not
advised to be used in the Internet' but not what you mentioned.  The phrase
'or any other reason' is put because there is no possibility to put the
exhaustive list of such purposes.   Anyway, what would you like to propose
here?

Mykyta Yevstifeyev

> _______________________________________________
> Ietf mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
>

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2011 11:51:06 -0700

Mykyta Yevstifeyev wrote:

>> I'd like to see some kind of guideline that the RFC should not be considered obsolete solely because of security or performance concerns in some particular, specific context.  For example, the fact that vanilla FTP is not sufficiently secure for use in some applications where high security is paramount is not a rationale for deprecating FTP in all applications.
>
> In the case I mentioned as c the key words are 'is not possible or is not advised to be used in the Internet' but not what you mentioned.

The document says “is not advised to be used in the Internet because of its security issues, impact on its performance or any other reason.”  (Do you agree that the document says that?)  My point is that, because security or performance issues in one context do not necessarily imply security or performance issues in all contexts, they should not by themselves (or together with the 7-year criterion) be sufficient to trigger deprecation.

> The phrase 'or any other reason' is put because there is no possibility to put the exhaustive list of such purposes.   Anyway, what would you like to propose here?

I don’t have exact replacement wording.  “Any other reason” could permit me to propose deprecation or “historicization” of a protocol because I don’t like the guy who created it, or because my company is promoting a rival protocol.

---

From: Mykyta Yevstifeyev <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 08:14:06 +0200

Doug, all,

30.01.2011 20:51, Doug Ewell wrote:
> where high security is paramount is not a rationale for deprecating 
> FTP in all applications.
> >
> > In the case I mentioned as c the key words are 'is not possible or 
> is not advised to be used in the Internet' but not what you mentioned.
> The document says “is not advised to be used in the Internet because 
> of its security issues, impact on its performance or any other 
> reason.”  (Do you agree that the document says that?)  My point is 
> that, because security or performance issues in one context do not 
> necessarily imply security or performance issues in all contexts, they 
> should not by themselves (or together with the 7-year criterion) be 
> sufficient to trigger deprecation.
I've recently thought on how to formulate this criterion.  My most 
current thoughts are the following:

c. The RFC describes the technology that is not possible to be used
      in the current Internet because of its technical characteristics or
      possible problems with its implementation.

However this is not a final variant - any other proposals are welcome.
> > The phrase 'or any other reason' is put because there is no 
> possibility to put the exhaustive list of such purposes.   Anyway, 
> what would you like to propose here?
> I don’t have exact replacement wording.  “Any other reason” could 
> permit me to propose deprecation or “historicization” of a protocol 
> because I don’t like the guy who created it, or because my company is 
> promoting a rival protocol.
Agreed here.  See what I think below.

---------

And now a few questions for discussion:

1)  Should historicizing Informational RFCs be allowed?

My proposal is to allow this only if they describe the protocol (see 
Section 4.2.2 of RFC 2026) with the authors' approval REQUIRED.

2)  Definition of obsolete RFCs are still unclear.  The most recent what 
I have is:

      c. The RFC describes the technology that is not possible to be used
      in the current Internet because of its technical characteristics or
      possible problems with its implementation.

Any proposals on this?

3)  Procedures on Experimental RFCs to Historic.

What I have in my working version is different from what is in -01 
version.  See below:

3.2.3. Experimental RFCs

    Procedures for historicizing Experimental RFCs depend on their origin
    and the way it is being historicized with.

3.2.3.1. Separate Historicizing Document

    The procedures described in this section apply to the case, mentioned
    as 'b' at the beginning of Section 3.2 (separate historicizing
    document).

    If the Experimental RFCs has been processed on IETF stream [RFC4844],
    'IETF Consensus' [RFC5226] is REQUIRED to historicize it.

    If the Experimental RFCs has been processed on IAB stream [RFC4844],
    'IETF Consensus' [RFC5226] and IAB Chair approval is REQUIRED to
    historicize it.

    If the Experimental RFCs has been processed on IRTF stream [RFC4844],
    'IETF Consensus' [RFC5226] and IRTF Chair approval is REQUIRED to
    historicize it.

    If the Experimental RFCs has been processed on Independent
    Submissions stream [RFC4844], 'IETF Consensus' [RFC5226] and authors'
    approval is REQUIRED to historicize it.  In essential cases the
    approval of the director of the area the historicized document is
    considered to be related to MAY be used instead the authors' one.

    In the cases described above IESG is responsible for recording their
    approval.

3.2.3.2. Superseding Document Historicizes the Superseded One

    The procedures described in this section apply to the case, mentioned
    as 'a' at the beginning of Section 3.2 (superseding document
    historicizes the superseded one).

    The superseding document that is being processed on the same stream
    [RFC4844] as the superseded one MAY move it to Historic without any
    special procedures; a simple mention of such action is therefore
    REQUIRED in superseding document.

    If the superseding document is being processed on the stream,
    different from that of superseded one, the approval of corresponding
    party is REQUIRED.  Section 3.2.3.1 describes some cases that apply
    this one as well (for IAB-, IETF-, and Independent Submissions
    streams [RFC4844]).  Historicizing IETF-stream documents by non-IETF-
    stream ones SHALL be made following usual procedures for RFCs of such
    stream with IETF Chair approval REQUIRED.

4)  Are there any thoughts on other consideration connected with 
historic docs.?

Except referencing, there might be appropriate to discuss what should be 
done with IANA registries defined by Historic RFCs.  Anything else?

All the best,
Mykyta Yevstifeyev