Richard Barnes wrote:
What is clearly going on here is that our branding is out of sync with
the expectations of our customers.
One of the historical items of note is that this supposed problem has been
present for about 20 years. In other words, nothing has changed.
For example, it prompted RFC 1796, "Not All RFCs are Standards" almost 15 years ago.
Whatever their historical meaning,
RFCs are now interpreted by the broad community as documents that have
the been reviewed and approved, to a greater or lesser degree, by the
Internet community.
To whatever extent it is true now, it's been true for decades and it hasn't
caused any real-world problems that have been documented.
Let me repeat: we have no documentation that, to whatever extent there is
confusion amongst RFC readers about the status of different RFCs, it causes
meaningful problems.
Moreover, the core implication of your assessment is that we should shut down
the Independent Stream entirely. And indeed, you indicate that that would be
your preference.
However, please note that you are creating a new distinction in this area of
discussion: "reviewed and approved by the Internet community" versus "IETF
Standard". Again, there is no evidence that the broader community understands
the subtlety of that distinction, so perhaps we should really require that all
RFCs be standards?
> I think we all agree that documents that go through
the IETF or the IAB can more or less legitimately claim that imprimatur.
Independent submissions clearly cannot. Given that, it's not clear to
me why the independent stream exists at all, other than for historical
reasons.
That's your real question. And absent an understanding of its reason for being,
how is it possible to state a preference for how it should be handled?
On the other hand, your clear statement that you believe the stream should not
exist substantiates the concern that allowing the IESG to mandate content of an
Independent document effectively brings that stream under the control of the
IESG. So Independent won't be.
Given that the abolition of the independent stream doesn't seem to be an
option at this point, the next best thing to do is to require that
independent-stream RFCs alert the reader to two things:
1. That this is not a document that has received IETF or IAB review, and
2. If the Internet community has any serious concerns, what they are
The IESG is not "The Internet Community". It is a tiny group of folk, with the
usual array of expertise and biases. Why should it be allowed to mandate the
content of documents that it has no involvement in and that are intended to be
independent of IESG control.
The other implication of the above paragraph is that the *absence* of an
IESG note indicates to the reader that the community has no serious
concerns,
Really? This presumes that folk would know to expect an IESG Note. Given the
other things we know they don't know about the RFC series, they aren't likely to
know about this possibility.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
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