Dave,
Well timed question, because I just ran headlong into it with regard to an experimental document. Here is what the RFC Editor has to say (ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc-editor/instructions2authors.txt): 2.7 References and Citations
An RFC will generally contain bibliographic references to other
documents, and the body will contain citations to these
references. Section 4.7f specifies the format for the references
listed at the end of the RFC body, but there is no required format
for a citation.
Within an RFC, references to other documents fall into two general
categories: "normative" and "informative". Normative references
specify documents that must be read to understand or implement the
technology in the new RFC, or whose technology must be present for
the technology in the new RFC to work. An informative reference
is not normative; rather, it provides only additional information.
For example, an informative reference might provide background or
historical information. Material in an informative reference is
not required to implement the technology in the RFC.
An RFC must include separate lists of normative and informative
references (see Section 4.7f below.) The distinction between
normative and informative references is often important. The IETF
standards process and the RFC Editor publication process need to
know whether a reference to a work in progress is normative. A
standards-track RFC cannot be published until all of the documents
that it lists as normative references have been published. In
practice, this often results in the simultaneous publication of a
group of interrelated RFCs.
We recommend enclosing citations in square brackets ("[ ]").
Simple numeric citations ("[53]") can cause confusing gaps when
the list of references is split between normative and informative.
A good alternative is to have two separate series, "[n1]", "[n2]",
... "[i1]", "[i2]" for citations to normative and informative
references. Other choices include author abbreviations, possibly
a year ("[Smith93]"), and some brief encoding of the title and
year ("[MPLS99a]").
The guidance at the beginning of the section seems to indicate that if
one needs to read something to understand the content you are
presenting, then a normative reference is in order, no matter the
intended status. I personally think it matters less when dealing with
non-standards track documents (but then that's a general statement).
The risk you take is that something changes underneath you before
publication if they are not now published.Eliot |
_______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf