I think that this I-D has one hole in it but it is a massive one. It places no limit on the size to which an alternative format could expand our documents. I was reminded of this when I received a 514kbyte e-mail from another SDO on an IETF list. I saved the text and so lost the exact formatting but none of the semantics or sense. The result was 32kbyte, ie the formatting used by another SDO had increased the size 16-fold, a 16-fold increase in network traffic, a 16-fold increase in the storage needed for as long as the document was stored. Repeat this across the IETF's I-Ds and the ability to produce RFCs would be substantially reduced. There should be an immutable requirement that any alternative format MUST NOT increase the size by more than a factor of two compared to ASCII text. Tom Petch ----- Original Message ----- From: "IAB Chair" <iab-chair@xxxxxxx> To: <ietf-announce@xxxxxxxx> Cc: <rfc-interest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, February 01, 2013 7:53 PM Subject: Call for Comment: "RFC Format Requirements and Future Development" This is an announcement of an IETF-wide Call for Comment on "RFC Format Requirements and Future Development". The document is being considered for publication as an Informational RFC within the IAB stream, and is available for inspection here: http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-iab-rfcformatreq The Call for Comment will last until February 29, 2013. Please send comments to iab at iab.org or submit them via TRAC (see below). Please also cc: rfc-interest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (for membership info, see: https://www.rfc-editor.org/mailman/listinfo/rfc-interest). =============================================================== Submitting Comments via TRAC 1. To submit an issue in TRAC, you first need to login to the IAB site on the tools server: http://tools.ietf.org/wg/iab/trac/login 2. If you don't already have a login ID, you can obtain one by navigating to this site: http://trac.tools.ietf.org/newlogin 3. Once you have obtained an account, and have logged in, you can file an issue by navigating to the ticket entry form: http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/iab/trac/newticket 4. When opening an issue: a. The Type: field should be set to "defect" for an issue with the current document text, or "enhancement" for a proposed addition of functionality (such as an additional requirement). b. The Priority: field is set based on the severity of the Issue. For example, editorial issues are typically "minor" or "trivial". c. The Milestone: field should be set to milestone1 (useless, I know). d. The Component: field should be set to the document you are filing the issue on. e. The Version: field should be set to "1.0". f. The Severity: field should be set to based on the status of the document (e.g. "In WG Last Call" for a document in IAB last call) g. The Keywords: and CC: fields can be left blank unless inspiration seizes you. h. The Assign To: field is generally filled in with the email address of the editor. 5. Typically it won't be necessary to enclose a file with the ticket, but if you need to, select "I have files to attach to this ticket". 6. If you want to preview your Issue, click on the "Preview" button. When you're ready to submit the issue, click on the "Create Ticket" button. 7. If you want to update an issue, go to the "View Tickets" page: http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/iab/trac/report/1 Click on the ticket # you want to update, and then modify the ticket fields as required.