Subject: [newtrk] Re: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-newtrk-docid-00.txt

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 09:32:21 +0100

I think something like this would be a great improvement.

Three top level comments:

1. Some standards have mnemonics as well as numbers. I think
these should be assigned (optionally) and recorded in the same
way as the numbers.

2. Multiple RFCs can form part of the same standard. One could
have a situation where one RFC was associated with STD-999ps
and another RFC with STD-999is, simultaneously. I don't mean
to suggest this is a problem.

3. This would have direct impact on the hyperlinked structure
at http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfcxx00.html, which would need
to be reorganized completely.

Then an "IAOC hat on" comment:

New commitments for the Secretariat have to be verified against
contractual and resource constraints. I'm not suggesting there
is a deep problem here; it's just a step we have to carry out.

     Brian

.
newtrk resources:_____________________________________________________
web user interface: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/newtrk.html
mhonarc archive: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/newtrk/index.html

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 08:51:16 -0500

> these should be assigned (optionally) and recorded in the same

I agree in principle, but would note, especially in the context
of your "IAOC hat" comment, that, as soon as we move past
numbers, we start tiptoeing down the path toward ISDs or SRDs.
I was, based on painful experience, trying to keep this proposal
very narrow.

> to suggest this is a problem.

I would suggest it is a problem in the sense that someone needs
to make a decision.  Potentially, that decision needs to be made
for all of the existing Proposed/ Draft standards.  As the draft
indicates, the RFC Editor has made those decisions in the past.
I believe they have gotten it right at the 90% level or better,
so like that idea, with a correction mechanism if needed, more
than, e.g., "dump it on the IESG".   But, again drawing on the
experience of the ISD/SRD discussions, if we open ourselves to a
process of endless arguments and nit-picking about which things
belong together, the whole idea will fail.  We would be better
off undoing the "multiple RFCs forming part of the same
standard" idea and just attaching standards-identifiers to the
most recent version of a given specification-document.

> to be reorganized completely.

Yep.  As I said in my comment on the techspec list, to the
extent to which we are talking about identifiers for standards,
serial document numbers are just a broken idea.  We have known
that for many years; I believe it is the reason why STD numbers
were introduced.  But the current definition of STD numbers
effectively assumes that the timeouts of RFC 2026 will be
applied and that most document that are going to progress at all
will progress on more or less the minimal schedules specified in
2026.  That doesn't reflect current reality and, IMO, we need to
start fixing the system rather than seeing if we can use more
hyperlink structures to patch around the use of document numbers
for purposes for which they are really not suitable.

> is a deep problem here; it's just a step we have to carry out.

Two comments:

* Of course.  But I believe that this should work on a basis of
"the IETF figures out what is needed and specifies requirements,
then the IAOC either figures out where the resources come from
or tells us why not".

* The same comment can (and should) be made about the RFC Editor
(Technical Publisher), and any other contractors or staff the
IAD and IAOC decide to hire.  From my point of view, this needs
to be done (or the IAOC needs to tell us why not), but _where_
it is done is properly an IAD/IAOC decision based on allocations
of resources, contractual constraints, etc.

   john

.