Also, because it's not publicly visible, here's my PROTO writeup for this document: The publication of draft-melnikov-smtp-priority as a Proposed Standard is requested by an individual contributor. (1) What type of RFC is being requested (BCP, Proposed Standard, Internet Standard, Informational, Experimental, or Historic)? Why is this the proper type of RFC? Is this type of RFC indicated in the title page header? This document proposes a standard protocol extension to SMTP. It is possible for the proposal to go through as Experimental, but the shepherd and the participants in the discussion of the document believe that Proposed Standard is correct. The strongest argument for Experimental is probably the new mechanism of tunneling the SMTP parameters through servers that don't support them by using reserved message header fields (see more below). (2) The IESG approval announcement includes a Document Announcement Write-Up. Please provide such a Document Announcement Write-Up. Recent examples can be found in the "Action" announcements for approved documents. The approval announcement contains the following sections: Technical Summary Relevant content can frequently be found in the abstract and/or introduction of the document. If not, this may be an indication that there are deficiencies in the abstract or introduction. This defines an extension to SMTP whereby messages are sent with a "priority", enabling the receiving Message Transfer Agent to take the priority into account for onward processing. The goal is to process and/or transfer higher priority messages first. Working Group Summary Was the document considered in any WG, and if so, why was it not adopted as a work item there? Was there controversy about particular points that caused the WG to not adopt the document? There are currently no appropriate email-related working groups. The ADs and AppsAWG chairs considered the document for the Apps Area WG, but decided that it would be done best as an individual submission, and did not need the attention of the working group. Document Quality Are there existing implementations of the protocol? Have a significant number of vendors indicated their plan to implement the specification? Are there any reviewers that merit special mention as having done a thorough review, e.g., one that resulted in important changes or a conclusion that the document had no substantive issues? If there was a MIB Doctor, Media Type or other expert review, what was its course (briefly)? In the case of a Media Type review, on what date was the request posted? There is at least one prototype implementation, and plans for at least one other after publication. This is largely being done for a particular use case, and the proponents are aware of some of the tradeoffs they've made. The shepherd has some concern about the broader applicability of this as a standard, given those trade-offs. That said, some of them had to be made, and there is value in implementing features from proprietary email systems in standardized ways on the open Internet. The shepherd supports that general effort. Personnel Who is the Document Shepherd? Who is the Responsible Area Director? Barry Leiba is the document shepherd; Pete Resnick is the Responsible AD. (3) Briefly describe the review of this document that was performed by the Document Shepherd. If this version of the document is not ready for publication, please explain why the document is being forwarded to the IESG. I have reviewed several versions of the document as it has progressed through the stages of discussion and modification, and I think this version is ready to go forward. I would like IETF community input on some of the trade-offs, particularly those created by the parameter tunneling and those involving the trust model (see below). (4) Does the document Shepherd have any concerns about the depth or breadth of the reviews that have been performed? The document has had sufficient review from the email community, on the ietf-smtp list and through individual reviews. I have no concerns about the level of review. (5) Do portions of the document need review from a particular or from broader perspective, e.g., security, operational complexity, AAA, DNS, DHCP, XML, or internationalization? If so, describe the review that took place. I would like to see SecDir and OpsDir reviews during the last-call process. (6) Describe any specific concerns or issues that the Document Shepherd has with this document that the Responsible Area Director and/or the IESG should be aware of? For example, perhaps he or she is uncomfortable with certain parts of the document, or has concerns whether there really is a need for it. In any event, if the interested community has discussed those issues and has indicated that it still wishes to advance the document, detail those concerns here. The most significant item that needs to be called out is the issue of tunneling the PRIORITY value through non-conforming MTAs by turning it into a message header field (MT-Priority) and then back again. This is a problematic technique, but is an important capability for those who need and intend to implement this extension. It creates a trust issue, wherein a message containing MT-Priority can be originated with a Message Submission Agent that does not know about this extension, and when the message hits a Message Transfer Agent that does support this, the header field will be turned back into a valid PRIORITY value, on the unwarranted assumption that it was authorized. Intermediate MTAs have no way to distinguish this situation from one where the field was tunneled legitimately. The counter-argument is that the use case for this specification involves out-of-band trust relationships, and that such situations will be known and dealt with. I believe that limits the usability of those features on the open Internet, with other use cases. (7) Has each author confirmed that any and all appropriate IPR disclosures required for full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79 have already been filed. If not, explain why. Yes. (8) Has an IPR disclosure been filed that references this document? If so, summarize any discussion and conclusion regarding the IPR disclosures. No, and there are no known IPR issues with this document. (9) How solid is the consensus of the interested community behind this document? Does it represent the strong concurrence of a few individuals, with others being silent, or does the interested community as a whole understand and agree with it? The consensus for this is solid, but relatively small. A number of participants/reviewers have expressed interest in the concept, though it's not clear how much implementation is planned. (10) Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme discontent? If so, please summarise the areas of conflict in separate email messages to the Responsible Area Director. (It should be in a separate email because this questionnaire is publicly available.) No. (11) Identify any ID nits the Document Shepherd has found in this document. (See http://www.ietf.org/tools/idnits/ and the Internet-Drafts Checklist). Boilerplate checks are not enough; this check needs to be thorough. The document refers to iana.org URLs at the shepherd's request, to make it clear which registries are being referenced. These URLs will be removed before RFC publication. (12) Describe how the document meets any required formal review criteria, such as the MIB Doctor, media type, and URI type reviews. No formal reviews are needed. (13) Have all references within this document been identified as either normative or informative? Yes. (14) Are there normative references to documents that are not ready for advancement or are otherwise in an unclear state? If such normative references exist, what is the plan for their completion? No. (15) Are there downward normative references references (see RFC 3967)? If so, list these downward references to support the Area Director in the Last Call procedure. There is a normative reference to RFC 2033 (LMTP), which is Informational. This needs to be called out in the last-call note. (16) Will publication of this document change the status of any existing RFCs? Are those RFCs listed on the title page header, listed in the abstract, and discussed in the introduction? If the RFCs are not listed in the Abstract and Introduction, explain why, and point to the part of the document where the relationship of this document to the other RFCs is discussed. If this information is not in the document, explain why the interested community considers it unnecessary. No documents are modified by this one. (17) Describe the Document Shepherd's review of the IANA considerations section, especially with regard to its consistency with the body of the document. Confirm that all protocol extensions that the document makes are associated with the appropriate reservations in IANA registries. Confirm that any referenced IANA registries have been clearly identified. Confirm that newly created IANA registries include a detailed specification of the initial contents for the registry, that allocations procedures for future registrations are defined, and a reasonable name for the new registry has been suggested (see RFC 5226). The document contains several IANA actions, which are all clearly specified and correct. No new registries are created. (18) List any new IANA registries that require Expert Review for future allocations. Provide any public guidance that the IESG would find useful in selecting the IANA Experts for these new registries. None. (19) Describe reviews and automated checks performed by to validate sections of the document written in a formal language, such as XML code, BNF rules, MIB definitions, etc. I have run the usual idnits and ABNF checks, and all is OK. _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf