Re: I-D file formats and internationalization

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On Thu, Dec 01, 2005 at 03:44:35PM -0800, Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
> I don't think that the term 'authoritative' has much utility. The
> version I want is the one most likely to be trustworthy.
> 
> The early church had a series of battles deciding which text should be
> considered cannonical. And pretty unpleasant ones at that. 
> 
> If you have the medieval view of knowledge resulting uniquely from
> divine authority such disputes might make sense.

That's competent rhetoric.  It doesn't address the actual state of
affairs, but it reads well and is inflammatory.  Nice work.

RFCs have authoritative versions for a couple reasons.  Some are the result
of the IETF consensus process and the exact wording on which consensus
was achieved is important to know.  There are a significant number of
cases where small changes in the wording of an RFC or section thereof
would not achieve consensus.  To the extent that the internet community
agrees to abide by that consensus, the authoritative version is what was
agreed to.  For these RFCs the authority due them stems from the
consensus process.

Now, the IETF consensus process is performed by humans, and therefore
there will be mistakes.  In principle, however, it is this process that
conveys any authority on an RFC and not some imperative handed down from an
oligarchy, tyrant, or supernatural power.  I don't think your analogy to
the(?) church is particularly illuminating for that reason.

If you have issues with the IETF consensus process and the quality of
standards (and other documents) that process produces, I'm all ears. 

-- 
Ted Faber
http://www.isi.edu/~faber           PGP: http://www.isi.edu/~faber/pubkeys.asc
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