>>>>> "John" == John C Klensin <john-ietf@xxxxxxx> writes: John> --On Wednesday, 27 September, 2006 23:22 -0400 Sam Hartman John> <hartmans-ietf@xxxxxxx> wrote: >> I support the textual descriptions of the changes Eliot made. >> However I'm concerned that as with any effort to revise RFC >> 2026, there will llikely be changes in wording that have >> unintended consequences. I am not personally convinced that >> the value of revising RFC 2026 justifies the risk of problems >> in these changes. John> I share this concern. See below. >> I'm quite convinced that if we choose to revise RFC 2026 we >> should do so with a small set of goal changes--probably no more >> than Eliot and Scott have proposed. I will resist adding my >> pet improvements to 2026 to the list. I encourage others who >> don't want this effort to drown under its own weight to do the >> same. John> While I agree with that, I suggest that we are in something John> of a conundrum. Right now, 2026 is badly out of date in a John> number of areas. It reflects procedures and modes that we John> no longer follow, only a fraction of which are addressed by John> Eliot's draft. There is general community understanding and John> acceptance that we are operating, not by the letter of 2026, John> but by the combination of 2026 and a certain amount of, John> largely undocumented, oral tradition (I expect to hear from John> the usual suspects on that assertion, but it is the way it John> is). To make things worse, we have some BCPs that John> effectively amend 2026 but that are not referenced in John> Eliot's draft -- I've pointed out some of them to him, which John> I assume will be fixed, but may have missed others. John> If we produce a 2026bis that does not address some of those John> changes in procedure, we risk getting ourselves into a royal John> mess in which it isn't clear whether the authority for John> unchanged sections is 2026-as-modified, John> 2026-plus-oral-tradition, or whether the new document John> reinstates the long-abandoned procedures. That situation John> could easily bury us in procedural lawyers (probably the John> usual amateurs) and dickering... and we have enough of those John> problems already, at least IMO. This is exactly my concern. Trying to revise 2026 and getting it partially wrong could be more expensive than living with oral tradition. _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf