Re: Updated IESG Statement "IESG Processing of RFC Errata for the IETF Stream"

[Stewart Bryant <stewart.bryant@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 12 May 2021, at 16:46, tom petch <daedulus@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Second, you say that 'Hold for Document Update' makes it painfully clear that there is no IETF consensus on the problem. I disagree.  The Editor page says that this status says that it is not a necessaary update, may be considered for a future update which to me has always implied that this may not be an error at all, rather out of scope at present, a request for a functional change, such as to make a product compliant to the RFC:-).  SO there may be a clear consensus, not right at this time.

Yes there are many reasons for HFDU. One is that the issue is a technical change that is out of scope for an erratum, but does need to be addressed when an updating or replacing RFC is published. It is assumed that the change is not urgent when HFDU is used,There is another that is closer to your point in that the erratum problem is valid, but would take significant work to address, and the base document itself is obsolete so no harm is done in leaving the issue on file.

So long as we have technical experts as ADs and not career specialist managers, the system we have with the significant degree of discretion that we impart to the ADs and associated errata classifications works acceptably well in my view.

If a fix to an erratum is incorrect it can always be replaced, a second erratum created or an updating RFC published. We should continue to use the  pragmatic and reasonably flexible process that exists and seems to work, rather than try to design a fixed “perfect” approach.

- Stewart