(I just saw Warren's note and the new Last Call before sending this. I've adjusted this note somewhat but don't want to delay it further, so, if there are comments that no longer seem applicable, please ignore them.) --On Wednesday, March 30, 2022 13:03 -0400 John Levine <johnl@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > It appears that Ted Hardie <ted.ietf@xxxxxxxxx> said: >> -=-=-=-=-=- >> >> I do not think this last call is well-formed. There is no >> link to the document and it is not available via the >> datatracker. It's difficult to see how the community can >> successfully give advice on a matter with no document (and >> not even an abstract). >> >> May I ask that the IESG consider re-issuing this last call >> with the appropriate pointers? > > At the very least, it should say TPC.INT, not TCP.INT. > > What they're proposing is reasonable but it needs a better > paper (electronic?) trail. Yes. And agree with "ill-formed" as well (more on that below). Noting that this document normatively and procedurally depends on draft-davies-int-historic (even more clearly in today's version) and that the actions it does (or does not) specify depend on that other draft, these comments are addressed partially to the other draft. However, in addition to pointing out the deficiencies of that I-D, it identifies specific issues that make this one even less well-formed and more incomplete. Additional nit-picking: (1) If the plan is to get rid of TPC.INT and its uses, draft-davies-int-historic (referred to as "the I-D" below) or some other document should also address RFC 1703. Without doing something about that radio paging document, the domains cannot possibly be made historic (whatever that means) because there would still be an active spec for which the IETF or IAB presumably have (or would claim) responsibility that uses the domain. FWIW, that is something I found by doing a simple search or grep on the ASCII form of the RFC Index [1], a type of exercise I would recommend to the author of the status change document and the authors of the I-D.. Having those sorts of loose ends in this document and process is, IMO, even worse than the "TCP.INT" problem that has now been fixed. (2) The I-D says, in Section 3.2, "...should be deemed historic given the transfer of these functions to the "arpa" top-level domain [RFC3172]". But 3172 does not transfer anything. Its Section 5 merely says that infrastructure domains not already in "arpa" should follow its requirements and that 'consideration should be given to migrating them into "arpa" as and when appropriate.' Section 3.2 of the I-D, if correct, is close to meaningless in the absence of addressing the move in a meaningful way and the process(es) that were followed in making them, presumably including additional references. Probably that should reference a publicly-available copy of "Purchase Order No. 40SBNT067020" and/or the letter from Karen Rose that appears as Appendix A of 3172 (not just a vague "guess what we are actually referring to" pointer to the whole of 3172), and whatever documentation exists of ICANN and IAB correspondence about making the move. Preferably there should also be a report on the completion of that work [2] (and see (4) below). And, again, if those changes have not been made, the premise behind moving some domains to historic is just not plausible. (3) RFC 3172 also does not say a word about "international databases". If this I-D intends to use that term as a synonym for "infrastructure domain", as defined in RFC 3172, it should either say so or use 3172's terminology. I don't know what an "international database" is although I can makes guesses. Most things to which I might apply that term have nothing to do with either the INT or ARPA TLDs. I also note that, while I assume the IETF would not create a subdomain of ARPA that did not have relevance in multiple countries, I can find nothing in 3172 that would prohibit that so "international" is just justified by any documents I have been able to find. (4) Now, if a significant fraction of this confusion is due to actions being held in abeyance until the I-D is ready for publication and the action specified in this Last Call ready to be taken, situations like that are nothing new to the I-D collection or the RFC Series. We insert explanatory paragraphs in documents with advice to the RFC Editor to remove them at/before publication. We explain in the Last Call announcement. And/or we do other things. We do not leave it to those trying to participate in a Last Call to guess or to be generally confused. To me, that suggests that not only this proposed action statement (even in the new version) and the I-D are, borrowing words from Ted, ill-formed. (5) I don't remember seeing earlier examples in which a phrase like "should be deemed historic" is considered an "update" to a prior document. Unless there are enough such examples to establish a precedent, I suggest that I-D, having explained why those domains and the defining documents are obsolete, simply obsolete them on the theory that they are of no further use. If someone believes that the use of "historic" provides more value to older documents than making them obsolete, either the I-D or this proposed action and Last Call notice should make that clear. Conclusion: The I-D is not nearly ready for publication. Obviously, if it is not, the Last Call on declaring some domains Historic (again, whatever that means), is premature. At minimum, there should be a revised version of the I-D that is carefully proofread, creates or points to the "paper (electronic?) trail" John Levine suggests, and responds to any input he or the RPC have on "make historic" as a form of "updates". My first four comments above are certainly part of the paper trail issue. And, preferably, to avoid wasting the time of the community, both Last Calls should be stopped until that revised draft (or another plan) is available. A new Last Call (or pair of them) can then be initiated. I have some additional, possibly more serious, concerns, but that note may take a few more days to complete. best, john [1] While a search or grep on the old-style rfc-index.txt works, putting "TPC.INT" (or '"TPC.INT"') into the online version at https://www.rfc-editor.org/ (which claims to support search phrases) yields error messages. Drawing a message from that is certainly out of scope for this note. [2] Assuming it has been completed -- I note that there are still delegation records for TPC.INT and, fwiw, that they are inconsistent with the WHOIS records for that domain. If you (the other John) or I did that, and the registry were adhering to the spirit of ICANN requirements, they would be sending us nasty notes. I hope we can look forward to seeing a note from the TLD registry operator (IANA) to the SLD operator (perhaps also IANA) suggesting some effort... or, of course, a report on such a note. Unfortunately, probably too late for either the correspondence or the report to be posted or summarized two days from now :-( -- last-call mailing list last-call@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/last-call
