Spencer Dawkins wrote:
Hi, Dave,
Just to make sure I'm breathing the same atmosphere you are ...
Are you suggesting initial publication of RFCs as Historic?
No (though I think DomainKeys was just initially published that way, albeit
for a very different and benign reason; kinda amusing to see.).
Brian suggested the Historic label as an essentially punitive action, *after*
publication on standards track, to reclassify it off the track. If it is
discovered that there was inadequate disclosure.
It's not exactly insightful to predict that the IETF's taking this unusual
action is likely to be the result of a process that includes a lot of anger
amongst the IETF community. However I think the action need not be viewed as
"punitive". Rather it merely marks an error and fixes the publication "books"
to reflect the error. (But, then, I don't see getting on standards track as a
"reward", either...)
Let's be clear:
1. Lots of specifications do just fine in the real world without any
IETF label at all and certainly without an IETF standards track label. So
there is no inherent basis for claiming that the label is needed for a spec to
be useful.
2. Rather, the label says something about community consensus. If a later
disclosure alters that consensus, then of course the community should re-label
the thing, to take it off standards track.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
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