IETF Stream Documents Require IETF Rough Consensus
draft-halpern-gendispatch-consensusinformational-01

Network Working Group                                J.M.H. Halpern, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                                  Ericsson
Updates: 2026 (if approved)                         E.K.R. Rescorla, Ed.
Intended status: Best Current Practice                           Mozilla
Expires: 15 June 2020                                   13 December 2019

           IETF Stream Documents Require IETF Rough Consensus
          draft-halpern-gendispatch-consensusinformational-01

Abstract

   This document proposes that the IETF never publish any IEtF stream
   RFCs without IETF rough consensus.  This updates RFC 2026.

Status of This Memo

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 15 June 2020.

Copyright Notice

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  Proposal  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   4.  Discussion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   5.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   7.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3

1.  Introduction

   IETF procedures, as defined by [RFC2026] allow for Informational or
   Experimental RFCs to be published without IETF rough consensus.  For
   context, it should be remembered that this RFC predates the
   separation of the various streams (e.g.  IRTF, IAB, and Independent.)
   When it was written, there were only "RFC"s.

   As a consequence, it is currently permitted for the IETF to approve
   an Internet Draft for publication as an RFC without IETF rough
   consensus.

2.  Terminology

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
   14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

3.  Proposal

   The IETF MUST NOT publish RFCs on the IETF stream without
   establishing IETF rough consensus for publication.

4.  Discussion

   The current procedures permit such publication.  The IESG has issued
   a statement saying that no document will be issued without first
   conducting an IETF Last Call.  While this apparently improves the
   situation, looking closely it makes it worse.  Rather than publishing
   documents without verifying that there is rough consensus, as the
   wording in [RFC2026] suggests, this has the IESG explicitly
   publishing documents on the IETF stream that have failed to achieve
   rough consensus.

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   One could argue that there is a need for publishing some documents
   that the community can not agree on.  However, we have an explicit
   procedure for such publication, namely the Independent Stream.  Or,
   for research documents, the IRTF stream, which explicitly publishes
   many minority opinion Informational RFCs.

   If this proposal is not accepted, there is still a minor problem to
   be addressed.  When a non-consensus document is published, the
   current boilerplate simply omits the sentence claiming that there is
   consensus.  If the community feels that we need to keep the right for
   the IESG to publish Informational or Experimental RFCs without IETF
   rough consensus, then please, the IAB SHOULD use its authorithy over
   the boilerplate for RFCs to make the boilerplate explicit rather than
   relying on readers to detect a missing sentence.

5.  IANA Considerations

   No values are assigned in this document, no registries are created,
   and there is no action assigned to the IANA by this document.

6.  Security Considerations

   This document introduces no new security considerations.  It is a
   process document about changes to the rules for certain corner cases
   in publishing IETF stream RFCs.

7.  Normative References

   [RFC2026]  Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision
              3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, DOI 10.17487/RFC2026, October 1996,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2026>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

Authors' Addresses

   Joel M. Halpern (editor)
   Ericsson
   P. O. Box 6049
   Leesburg, VA 20178

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   United States of America

   Email: joel.halpern@ericsson.com

   Eric K. Rescorla (editor)
   Mozilla
   331 E. Evelyn Ave
   Mountain View, CA 94101
   United States of America

   Email: ekr@rtfm.com

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