Subject: Re: [newtrk] Comments on draft-klensin-newtrk-std-repurposing-00.txt

From: Aaron Falk <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 14:56:03 -0700

On Aug 17, 2004, at 2:14 AM, John C Klensin wrote:

> 	(ii) Personally, I strongly disagree with Brian that
> 	tossing everything and going to single-level would be a
> 	good idea.  However, it is is fairly clear that the
> 	"maturity level categories" model of standards isn't
> 	sufficiently fine-grained to deal effectively and
> 	without qualification with common situations such as
> 	"that element of the standard is a lot more mature
> 	(implemented, interoperable, deployed,...) than this
> 	other element".

(trying to catch up on this thread very late...)

I have a, perhaps naive, question: is there any evidence that there 
exist implementors or operators who ignore lower standards level 
documents in favor of higher ones?  (E.g., "I'm running RFC822 (IS) 
rather than RFC2822 (PS) email since *my* mail system needs the extra 
robustness implied by full Internet Standard.")  In other words, does 
anybody who uses this technology make decisions based on standard 
status level?

--aaron

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From: Aaron Falk <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 14:56:03 -0700

--aaron

.

.

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From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 19:31:33 -0500

Hi, Aaron,

I can only tell my story - about implementers who set out to implement 
"SMTP" based on RFC 821 (the full standard), instead of RFC 2821 (the 
proposed standard), about 18 months ago. In this case, they DID care 
about standard maturity level - apparently, more than we do.

I changed the development plan instead of asking customers if they 
knew the difference, so I can't tell you that customers didn't know 
the difference, but they had already purchased "SMTP", so if we had 
delivered RFC 821, that's what they would have deployed.

I keep saying that we need to define a standards track that is not 
actively hostile to people who are trying to use it correctly. This is 
why I think we haven't defined one yet...

Spencer

From: "Aaron Falk" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2004 4:56 PM
Subject: Re: [newtrk] Comments on 
draft-klensin-newtrk-std-repurposing-00.txt

> rather than RFC2822 (PS) email since *my* mail system needs the 
> extra robustness implied by full Internet Standard.")  In other 
> words, does anybody who uses this technology make decisions based on 
> standard status level?
>
> --aaron 

.

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From: Aaron Falk <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 19:31:54 -0700

Hmm, yes, the possibility for confusion is obvious.  But I was really 
asking whether people were making a conscious choice to use the higher 
standards level since the lower level documents have less maturity.  We 
talk about PS as being less 'ready' than IS but I see hints that that 
the reality is that the technology at PS is 'new hotness and IS is 'old 
and busted' (well, at least 'old').

The *documents*, as has been mentioned, are clearly not as tight at PS. 
  Some ability to make minor revs seems useful.

--aaron

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