On 16 Apr 2014, at 16:14, Yoav Nir <ynir.ietf@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On Apr 16, 2014, at 5:01 PM, Wesley Eddy <wes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> On 4/16/2014 9:31 AM, Thomas Clausen wrote: >>> >>> FWIW, my personal belief is that "running code" should be a >>> requirement for anything going std. track -- and that a (mandatory) >>> period as Experimental prior to go std. track would yield the stable >>> spec against which to reasonably build code, and run >>> (interoperability) tests, fix bugs, etc. If after (pulling a number >>> out my hat here) a year as Experimental there's no running code, then >>> that's probably a good indicator, also, as to if this is something >>> the IETF should bother doing.... >>> >> >> >> If there's no running code, or pretty concrete plans and commitments >> to get there, then there's really no need for an Experimental RFC that >> will get a number and last forever. An I-D that expires in direct >> conjunction with the interest and energy in it is just fine. > > Except that an I-D usually doesn’t get IANA allocations, so you use a number from the private space, and you have to coordinate with anyone who wants to interoperate about which private number to use. Hum....I do know that there are experimental protocols that have IANA allocations (though, that may be from the olden days), and I think that there's nothing preventing an Experimental from setting up IANA registries on its own. Furthermore, that "coordination" you talk about....wouldn't simply documenting that in the Experimental RFC suffice: "For the purpose of the experiments, documented in this RFC, use UDP port XXXXX, message type YYY, and error codes A, B and C from the register xxxx. Note that these codepoints all are from the private/experimental spaces of their respective registries, and that therefore this section does not represent IANA allocations" Sure, the RFC would get an RFC number, but that's about it.