Subject: [newtrk] another newtrk document - What's In a Name: RFC

From: [email-masked] (scott bradner)
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 11:18:44 -0400 (EDT)

the newtrk charter calls for us to explore the::
   "development of a primary marker to distinguish documents
   originating from the IETF from those not originating from the IETF"

Jonathan Rosenberg and Allison Mankin have produced an ID to address
this deliverable - they will have time on the agenda for the newtrk
session in DC so please read this document before then - if you have any
comments you do not need to wait until DC to make them - thats what the 
mailing list is for

thanks

Scott
.
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From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 11:45:57 -0400

--On Saturday, 23 October, 2004 11:18 -0400 scott bradner
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> Jonathan Rosenberg and Allison Mankin have produced an ID to
> address this deliverable - they will have time on the agenda
> for the newtrk session in DC so please read this document
> before then - if you have any comments you do not need to wait
> until DC to make them - thats what the  mailing list is for

I have skimmed through this.  I've got many problems with it
that I will either write up or discuss at the meeting.  But,
before I even start to formulate them, I want to raise two
questions:

(1) The document does not appear to address the question of what
happens to documents that were previously published as RFCs but
were not "IETF-produced" or "IETF-approved".  Noting that list
inherently includes every document approved before the IETF came
into being, including the base TCP and IP specifications, do we
propose to rename them, thereby invalidating references all over
the Internet?  Do we propose to mount a review, akin to the
cruft committee, to determine what should be reclassified?

(2) Do the authors assume that any document arising from an IETF
process, including those forced into "informational" or
"experimental" status because they were clearly inappropriate
for standardization, is intrinsically somehow better than
documents handled as independent submissions, even if they were
extensively discussed using IETF mechanisms and represent some
degree of community acceptance (even if they were not formally
blessed by the IESG)?

Just questions, but possibly the basis for more discussion.

    john

.

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From: Jonathan Rosenberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 13:01:13 -0400

John,

Thanks for the comments. Inline.

> cruft committee, to determine what should be reclassified?

This is a good question. I think the answer is no. What we're doing here 
is changing the process, and that affects how things are done from here 
forward. We're not rewriting history; the documents issued to date have 
the moniker RFC as determined by the process in place at the time the 
moniker was granted, and thus the name should probably stick.

> degree of community acceptance (even if they were not formally

Better, in terms of quality by any metric, has nothing to do with it. I 
don't view "RFC" as a title granted to documents written by smart 
people, nor is it an award for good ideas. There are lots of smart 
people and lots of good ideas all over the place, and just because they 
are great and of exceptional quality doesn't make them an RFC.

The draft proposes that the moniker "RFC" imply that a document went 
through the IETF standards process - it had an opportunity to receive 
comment from the IETF community, it received IESG review and approval, 
and it is subject to appeal and other procedures that IETF has put into 
place. This is, I think, the most objective way to define a document as 
"a product of the IETF". We, as a community, gather together and work to 
feed documents into this process and produce results for the community, 
and thus, being an output of that process says that it was the community 
that produced this document.

Does the IETF sometimes produce documents of poor quality? Absolutely. 
Do papers of better quality appear in the RFC series, produced outside 
of IETF? No doubt. I tend to hope that, as an IETF, we constantly strive 
to improve our process to make documents of the highest quality we can, 
but thats not really the point. Quality is subjective, and every person 
and every organization can, and does, make mistakes. The point is that 
these documents were *produced by the IETF community*. To someone 
picking up the document, it means that they can be sure it was subject 
to open inputs from people from companies small and large, and was 
produced by a group who has recognized competence in Internet 
engineering for many years, and done so with an open standards process 
with the appropriate checks and balances in place. An outsider gains 
confidence in quality because of the underlying process and community 
that drives it.

So, to provide the short answer to your question: documents which go 
through and are subject to the IETF standards process as defined in 
RFC2026 section 6, get the moniker. Thus, even if a document was read by 
every attendee at every IETF for the last 30 years, but it didn't go 
through that process, it would not get to be an RFC. Furthermore, the 
moniker applies to documents both on the standards track, and those in 
the informational, BCP and experimental categories.

Thanks,
-Jonathan R.
-- 
Jonathan D. Rosenberg, Ph.D.                   600 Lanidex Plaza
Director, Service Provider VoIP Architecture   Parsippany, NJ 07054-2711
Cisco Systems
[email-masked]                        FAX:   (973) 952-5050
http://www.jdrosen.net                         PHONE: (973) 952-5000
http://www.cisco.com
.
newtrk resources:_____________________________________________________
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From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 00:23:46 -0400

Let me use a recent real case as a question to clarify what this really means.

I chaired a working group whose work results were such that there was an 
obvious additional item to produce.  That item was not in the charter.  I 
could not get enough working group agreement to add that to the charter, 
because there were not enough people interested to make it a real working 
group product.  However, we had some very interested participants who 
decided to produce the document.
By pushing, using the working group mailing list and other mailing lists, 
we got almost as much review for that document as we had achieved for the 
earlier working group documents.
The document has been approved as a proposed standard.
I was approved as an Individual Submission because it was not technically a 
working group product.

Under the new procedure, would such a document not be an RFC?
(This may be the kind of question that prompts lawyers o say "hard 
questions make bad laws", but as we get more procedure-bound, these sorts 
of questions start to arise.)

Yours,
Joel

At 01:01 PM 10/23/2004 -0400, Jonathan Rosenberg wrote:
>comment from the IETF community, it received IESG review and approval, and 
>it is subject to appeal and other procedures that IETF has put into place. 
>This is, I think, the most objective way to define a document as "a 
>product of the IETF". We, as a community, gather together and work to feed 
>documents into this process and produce results for the community, and 
>thus, being an output of that process says that it was the community that 
>produced this document.

.

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From: Jonathan Rosenberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 00:58:07 -0400

Joel,

This is a good question.

There are two types of documents that can be considered "individual 
submissions", and they are quite different.

One type, and I think it is what you refer to below, doesn't really come 
from a working group. However, it does go to iesg, it does get an IETF 
last call, it does need to be approved by iesg, and it is subject to the 
appeals process. This kind of document is most definitely deserving of 
the title "RFC", since it still went through the process.

Another type doesn't invovle IETF; the document is sent straight to the 
RFC editor, and publication is requested from them. IESG will only make 
sure it is not a standards end run, and if not, publication resides with 
the discretion of the rfc-ed. There is no IEGS approval, no IETF last 
call, no appeals process. This document would not get an RFC label.

I hope that clarifies.

-Jonathan R.

Joel M. Halpern wrote:

> obvious additional item to produce.  That item was not in the charter.  
> I could not get enough working group agreement to add that to the 
> charter, because there were not enough people interested to make it a 
> real working group product.  However, we had some very interested 
> participants who decided to produce the document.
> By pushing, using the working group mailing list and other mailing 
> lists, we got almost as much review for that document as we had achieved 
> for the earlier working group documents.
> I was approved as an Individual Submission because it was not 
> technically a working group product.
> 
> questions make bad laws", but as we get more procedure-bound, these 
> sorts of questions start to arise.)
> 
> Yours,
> Joel
> 
>> and it is subject to appeal and other procedures that IETF has put 
>> into place. This is, I think, the most objective way to define a 
>> document as "a product of the IETF". We, as a community, gather 
>> together and work to feed documents into this process and produce 
>> results for the community, and thus, being an output of that process 
>> says that it was the community that produced this document.
> 
> 
> .