Pete Resnick wrote: >> (1) Partially restore the 822 text, stressing "private use", rather >> than "experiental". > > I don't think we'll be able to do this; see (3) below. ... >> (3) Encourage X-headers for strictly private use, i.e., they SHOULD >> NOT be used in any context in which interchange or communication >> about independent systems is anticipated and therefore SHOULD NOT be >> registered under 3683. > > I think this is DOA. There are many folks (myself included) who think > this should not be encouraged in any way, shape, or form. Folks, One of the lessons of the community's 30+ years of protocol work is that specification details which are actually usage guidance, rather than concrete interoperability details, often have little impact on a global community. The community formulates its own preferences. When X- as original proposed, I thought it was marvelously clever. I still do. But it doesn't work. While it does protect a privately-developed header field label from being preempted by a standards process, it creates a much more serious problem of moving from private-use to public standards and having to (try to) re-label the field. This is a highly disruptive impact./ In other words, if the model is true that existing practices get standardized -- and in this realm they often are, I think -- then we need to design things to make the transition from private-to-public be comfortable. Defining a private-use naming space runs counter to that goal. Valuable lesson. We should learn it. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net _______________________________________________ IETF mailing list IETF@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf