Lisa, Could you let us see your summary of the discussion about (not) documenting the X-headers? I haven't seen any further comments since Dave's message below, and it appears that the IESG is ballotting on the document now. Regards Brian On 2008-04-08 06:34, Dave Crocker wrote: > > 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/ > _______________________________________________ IETF mailing list IETF@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf