On Sun, 28 Mar 2004, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote: > Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2004 13:38:13 +0200 > From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <iljitsch@xxxxxxxxx> > Cc: IETF Discussion <ietf@xxxxxxxx> > > ... > > To me it seems that the IETF can't make up its mind: are RFCs just > drafts that don't expire, or are they hugely important documents that > must be absolutely perfect before they are published? Why does it have to be one of your two alternatives? RFC's are like books. No book is perfect. Almost all books undergo significant review, copy editing, etc,, before publication. > The problem is version control. We're engineers. That means we are, > more so than mere mortals, doomed never to get anything right the first > time out. However, the RFC publishing model doesn't really allow for > incremental changes: you have to write a completely new RFC, which then > gets a new number that has no relation to the original RFC. While it is normally the case that an RFC is "revised" by the publication of a new RFC which obsoletes the old, this is not necessarily the only way to do it. If there are a significant volume of changes but still only a small amount compated to the size of the original RFC, it is possible to publish and updating RFC, at least for Informational RFCs. See RFC 2801 and 3504. There is also an errata mechanism maintained by the RFC Editor. > What we need is a way to add information to RFCs whithout the need to > rewrite the original RFC or make the new information a full-blown RFC > of its own. There is clearly no way to do what you want with printed books, which are what RFCs are modelled after. To get the effect you want, people would need to go to a web resource or the like. But if they are willing to do that, then they can almost as eaily find out about errata and whether the RFC they are looking for has been obsoleted. I also notice that you ignore all the problems of fluid specifications that constantly change on line so that no two people/implementers can be sure they are working from the same spec unless they agreed on a time stamp, etc. Thanks, Donald ====================================================================== Donald E. Eastlake 3rd dee3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 155 Beaver Street +1-508-634-2066(h) +1-508-786-7554(w) Milford, MA 01757 USA Donald.Eastlake@xxxxxxxxxxxx