On 16 April 2014 14:31, Thomas Clausen <ietf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
And, convincing the IESG to start treating "Experimental" as exactly what you describe (and what, I believe, they were intended for) is simply not doable?
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....
Instead of Experimental, maybe a state before the standards-track proper, called "Proposed Standard", might work, beyond which you'd need two interoperable implementations to demonstrate utility and functionality.
I appreciate it's a radical suggestion.
Dave.