On 17 Jul 2011, at 01:52, John C Klensin wrote: > --On Saturday, July 16, 2011 16:03 -0400 Ronald Bonica > <rbonica@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > A more likely interpretation is as follows: > >> "the IETF is not likely to invest effort in the technology in >> the future" "the IETF does not encourage (or discourage) new >> deployments of this technology. > > Noting in passing that these sorts of statements are quite close > to the uses 2026 prescribes for Applicability Statements (and > for which we have even more precedent and oral tradition), if > the first of those is an adequate reason for identifying > something as historic, I recommend that we immediately move RFC > 791 to Historic. Certainly we are likely to invest more effort > in the development of the technology. Now, some people would > read such a move as either an indication, as you suggest above, > that the IETF thought no one was using it any more, or that > there were no remaining valid use cases, etc., immediately > turning us into a laughingstock. But, by logic that suggests > moving 6to4 to Historic on the grounds that the IETF is not > going to invest effort in the technology. Quite so. And with that, you've just ruined the best April 1 gag the IETF could have hoped for, you. :-) I stopped to consider, and do again, what exactly would prevent us from taking such a radical course of action. Clearly, the view that making something historic when it's in active use is offensive. No standards body could seek to stand behind their specifications, or to give the impression of doing so, with such a position. On the other hand, as you've shown, case-by-case analysis is a good thing for document action on historic (or any other status), and there are a body of cases where the merits of documents have not shown to be sufficient for the IETF to consider it worthwhile improving. I wasn't about in the early days of the IETF so I don't know anything about these oral traditions you speak of, except to say that this is a case to be made for the force of the written word. BTW, I am among those not exactly thrilled about the idea of moving of 6to4 to historic. Cheers, Sabahattin _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf