Subject: Comments on draft-klensin-newtrk-8540style-harmful-00

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 07 Jun 2019 12:31:53 -0700

Hi John,

I read draft-klensin-newtrk-8540style-harmful-00.  The brunt of the 
draft is about Standards Track versus Informational.  The draft is a 
critique which uses RFC 8540 as an example.  That RFC, which is 
"Informational", is a compilation of defects found in a "Proposed 
Standard".  One of the issues is protocol maintenance as the 
"standard"; the "standard" was not updated even though there were 
known defects.

Section 3.49.1 of RFC 8450 updates the boilerplate text in RFC 
4960.  Does that make every "standard" published between 1997 and 
2017 defective?

The approach espoused by the IESG creates two classes of errata, i.e. 
the usual ones and the ones which have IETF Consensus, as documented 
in an Informational RFC.  That does not look like a good idea.

There are the two points in Section 4 of the draft:

   1. "written with the appearance of Standards Track ones"

   2. "written as Informational RFCs"

The first one (please see example) has IPR disclosures.  In my 
opinion, it is not about what was written; it is about IETF 
fundamental issues.  Those issues are not new (that is mentioned in the draft).

Regards,
S. Moonesamy