Subject: [newtrk] Meeting discussion of ISDs- Experimental Protocols as core documents (outstanding)

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 15:04:58 -0500

This is the fourth of several summaries of my notes from last
week's discussion of ISDs.   This note and subsequent ones cover
outstanding issues and areas that are still very much under
discussion (or where disagreements are known to exist).

At least conceptually, an ISD has some defining document at its
core, with other documents supplementing, supporting, modifying,
or updating it.  It is clear that standards track documents can
occupy that core and that any other sort of documents can be
included, either normatively or internationally, as
additional/supplemental documents.

Question: Can Experimental Protocols be core documents for ISDs,
or does that take us too far down a slippery slope in which it
is, again, not clear to readers what is, or is not a standard?

		(Ok, my phrasing of that question probably tells you how
		I feel about it)

Question: Can experimental documents be referenced, presumably
non-normatively, as part of an ISD build around a
standards-track core document?

		(I think the answer to this has got to be "yes", but
		thought I'd ask)

.
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From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 21:37:31 -0600

> is, again, not clear to readers what is, or is not a standard?

This actually smells like the question on BCPs. There are at least a 
couple of flavors of Experimental:

- protocols we think are doomed, but we're tired of arguing,

- protocols we think are headed in the right direction, but incomplete 
for general Internet deployment (one might make the case that MIPv6 
should have been published as Experimental while we dorked with the 
security considerations so the protocol could be deployed anywhere),

- protocols that we think are actually OK, but they touch very 
critical parts of the Internet (when we've issued TCP or routing RFCs 
as Experimental, this has often been the reason - to give people a 
heads-up that we think the protocol is OK, but we might have to jerk 
it back quickly).

Going back to early days of NEWTRK ... we're talking about something 
that's gotten more review than the proposed Working Group 
Snapshot/Stable SnapShot because it was Last Called, right? If the 
natural way to retrieve the specification is through an ISD that says 
"Maybe the right way to go, but watch out for dragons", I think we can 
handle Experimental as a core document in an ISD. 

.

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From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 14:46:15 -0500

I do not think that an Experimental protocol can be the core of an ISD.  If 
it needs to be the core, then we need to get to the point that it can be on 
the standards track (whatever that turns out to mean.)  As you suggest, an 
ISD may reference auxiliary experimental documents.  It might even say 
"there are two different experiments under way to explore ways of doing BAR 
in conjunction with the core FOO activity, described in RFCs X and Y."

Yours,
Joel

.

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From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 19:44:01 -0800

FWIW, I agreed with most of John's 4 documents; the devil being in some 
of the details raised.

Joe