On 15/10/2021 18:12, Murray S. Kucherawy wrote:
Colleagues,
I've got a draft that seeks to update BCP 97, which is the guidance around
how we handle normative downward references. It's currently made up of
three separate RFCs and an erratum, so this will consolidate those into a
single document. The main mission here, though, is to update the guidance
around normative references to external documents, especially those behind
paywalls.
The draft is being sponsored by Erik Kline and can be found in the
datatracker here:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-kucherawy-bcp97bis/
Feedback is welcome, either on this thread or to me or Erik directly. If
people are generally happy with it as-is, we can initiate Last Call before
IETF 112 begins next month.
I have called out a number of downrefs in the past year or two, of
Normative References to IETF documents that are not Standards Track RFC
or I-D, and the response has sometimes been for the author to revise the
I-D to make it an Informative Reference. This is a nonsense; the I-D
cannot be understood without the Reference in question.
I can think of two explanations.
1) the author is not familiar with the processes and thinks that I-D
Nits it ordering the author to reclassify the reference
2) the author is familiar with the processes and is trying to game the
system.
Either way, I think that the process is failing in way that this I-D
does not address.
Tom Petch
Thanks,
-MSK, ART AD
