Subject: IANA procedures for GSTN address elements registration

From: Claudio Allocchio +39 040 3758523 <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 23:11:05 +0100

Hallo,
during this morning ietf FAX WG meeting we discussed the "IANA 
Considerations" section contained into the draft-ietf-fax-fulladr-05.txt 
document. In fact, while the rest of the document is stable and ready for 
last call, the WG should decide which level of control the registration 
of address elements c/o IANA should accomplish.

The text of the current draft states that any new registration MUST be 
supplemented by a Standard Track RFC specification. This was the result of
a short discussion between some FAX WG members and IANA people, and its 
main scope was to try to keep as low as possible the registration of "X-" 
types (to avoid the well known problems af any "X-" element which comes 
in common use).

However, as it was pointed out this morning, there are also other 
possible levels of control, which I try to list hereunder.

- We could state that any new IANA registration SHOULD be supplemented by a 
Standard track RFC. This leaves the way open also to experimental RFCs 
and eventually to externally defined specifications (like ITU ones).

- We could state that any new IANA registration MUST be supplemented by
a "fully specified and stable specification". This has the same 
consequences as the above sentence, but is even more "open" to external 
specification, including for example proprietary specification which 
wishes to register c/o IANA their services.

- We could state the any new IANA registration MAY be supplemented by a 
"fully specified and stable specification". This is the less strict 
requirement and leaves anybody free to register anything, without the 
need of an accompanying document.

In the meeting we decided to go to the mailing list and to the Area 
Director (i.e. you!) and ask for comments in order to find consensus on 
one of the above approaches.

Thus, please state your opinion on which of the above choices you'd like 
to see in the documen before we go for the last call (and the last call 
is sue in a short time!).

Regards
Claudio

PS: my "cent": I personally prefer the "SHOULD be supplemented by a stable 
and fully specified specification" solution.