On Thu, Dec 3, 2020 at 1:36 AM John C Klensin <john-ietf@xxxxxxx> wrote:
--On Wednesday, December 2, 2020 16:12 -0500 Keith Moore
<moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> p.s. RFC 2026 defines Historic as
>
> A specification that has been superseded by a more recent
> specification or is for any other reason considered to be
> obsolete
>
> I wonder if there's a need to be able to say "this
> specification is not obsolete in the sense that it has been
> entirely superseded or there's no longer any valid use for
> it, but today and for the foreseeable future this
> specification seems only appropriate for use in specific
> niches, and not for general purpose use on the public
> Internet".
As soon as you say that, you are into Applicability Statement
territory, which, IMO, is really what this discussion should be
about. See the telnet/ftp thread for details.
john
I disagree. Leaving aside the condescension in your other posts, we seem to have a fundamental disagreement as to the role the IETF should play in an IETF serving a user base of ~7 billion. What the IETF might have done 40 years ago, what it imagines itself to be doing are really besides the point.
The IETF has never been in the business of telling people what they can use. Rather it produces a set of documents that describe a set of protocols that provide significant value to a significant community of users. Interoperability is one consideration of course. But it has never been the only consideration. We vet new protocols for security, I see no reason to grandfather insecure legacy.
What Historic means in IETF terms is that IETF process has finished. There will be no further updates to the proposal. People are still free to use the protocol if they choose. But if you have interacted with any product manager, you know that they do take notice of such distinctions. Declaring the old obsolete clears the path for a replacement.
An applicability statement doesn't really have the same effect. But more importantly, how are you ever going to convince anyone IPv4 is dead if you won't even take finger to the woodshed?
