Hi, John, There are two different IETF IANA registry goals (at least): - maintenance of protocol parameters by the IANA for keeping the namespace free of conflict - policy for the extension of an IETF protocol, which is expressed by the rules governing the issuing of new codepoints for particular elements in that protocol. In the message the IESG sent about Roberts' request, we pointed out that the IPv6 Hop by Hop option extensibility is governed by a BCP, RFC 2780, which requires an IETF document (standards track or other), or in a fallback, IESG review. This is the action the IESG has taken. Your message about the the registries being largely for prevention of conflicts and so on is true for some registries, but for many others there's an extension policy in place too. For many protocols, there's an RFC that states a requirements for some or all the codepoints for an IETF docoument before IANA allocations. You can see these requirements in the IANA pages now. These requirements reflect views by the developers that the protocol needed engineered coherency, an IETF review process that would ensure architectural considerations when the extensions are made. (The IETF is here for engineering the protocols, after all). John wrote: > Historically, we maintain registries of various protocol > parameters, not to endorse them, but to prevent conflicts in the > meaning/ interpretation of such things. [snip...] Note there are hundreds of registries! One summary does not fit all. Also, endorse is a very loaded word. They express RFC 2434 / BCP 26 policies. Allison _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf