Subject: RE: RFC queue documents stuck on a normative reference

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 13:28:20 +0300

Brian,

> Opinion: for something that has already been approved by the IESG,
> this would count as a substantive change - so I would recommend a mini
> WG last call followed by a formal note to the AD, who should run it
> past the IESG before a formal note is sent to the RFC Editor.
> 
> The reason I think it's substantive is that we tend to consider
> normative reference problems worthy of a DISCUSS during IESG
> evaluation. (Hmm. Not mentioned in draft-iesg-discuss-criteria-00.txt)

Which prompts the question - which will be faster - mini WG LC plus
potential IESG review and re-editing by the RFC Editor; or just waiting
for the reference to clear ...

Having been involved in some 'interesting' AUTH48 situations, its
not clear that resubmitting the draft after much editing by the
RFC editor is a good idea.  Often, the author's source file and
what the RFC has edited has diverged significantly, so resumitting
the draft & losing all of the changes may create further delays 
since the RFC Editor will need to re-edit the document, thus
incuring yet another delay.

However, if there is a simple solution for this that I've missed,
it would be nice to find out.

thanks,
John

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 13:11:58 +0200

> it would be nice to find out.

I think a note to the RFC Ed saying something like

"With the agreement of the authors and WG, the IESG requests
the RFC Editor to move [FooBar] from Normative to Informative
References and remove the REF state." would be necessary and
sufficient - and less hassle than a new draft. This sort of thing
can happen already, at the time of approval - so it's just a deferred
Note to the RFC Editor.

(Thomas: nothing stays the same. RFC Editor Notes are now known as
Notes to the RFC Editor.)

     Brian

---

From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 10:24:24 -0400

> > evaluation. (Hmm. Not mentioned in draft-iesg-discuss-criteria-00.txt)

I think the above is the correct general procedure.

> for the reference to clear ...

The key question impacting "delay time" is the extent of the
changes. Converting a normative reference to an inforamtive is usually
well-scoped and there is presumably a strong motivation for doing so.

Where a LC and revised document typically get into trouble is when
there are many changes, and the implication that they need to be
reviewed, with the review being non-trivial (and getting folk to
re-review is problematical).

While "waiting for the reference to clear" may seem simplest, it has a
real downside (besides the fact that many "almost done" documents drag
out forever). The RFC Editor queue is rather backlogged these days. If
one waits for another document, that document (when it finally gets
approved) presumably enters the queue at the lowest priority and also
sits in the queue for yet more time. This will delay the other blocked
documents, since the entire set of documents (involved in normative
reference relationships) get published together (i.e., at the same
time).

> incuring yet another delay.

Agree with this. For a small number of changes, sending diffs (RFC
Editor, not Unix style) minimizes the work for all. But a lot of this
depends on whether the RFC editor has already invested cycles, etc. In
general, it's probably good to check with ADs/RFC Editor on best way
to proceed (once the text changes have been agreed to).

> Notes to the RFC Editor.)

Well, I certainly can't deny that the new wording is more
precise/clear! :-)

Thomas