I think this is one of the best discussions of what we're about that I've seen anywhere, and I'm grateful to John for working this through. One thing I'd like to take up further is this: On 5/29/13 9:23 AM, John C Klensin wrote: > Similarly, we sometimes hear it argued that we should accept a > specification for Proposed Standard unchanged because it has > been extensively developed and reviewed elsewhere. That may be > reasonable in some cases although I'd hope we wouldn't make it > a common practice. But, if a specification adopted for > Proposed Standard on that basis is then proposed for > advancement to Internet Standard, I think the review should be > comprehensive --perhaps even more comprehensive than the usual > such review-- because the Internet Standard is unambiguously an > IETF product and recommendation not that of the other body. I'd actually much prefer to see these go to informational, if they're to be published. Otherwise I agree - if something's going to be an IETF standard it needs to go through the IETF standards development review and revision process, which is probably not what the authors want. Melinda