IETF Stream Documents Require IETF Rough Consensus
draft-halpern-gendispatch-consensusinformational-04

Network Working Group                                 J. M. Halpern, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                                  Ericsson
Updates: 2026 (if approved)                          E. K. Rescorla, Ed.
Intended status: Best Current Practice                           Mozilla
Expires: 6 September 2020                                   5 March 2020

           IETF Stream Documents Require IETF Rough Consensus
          draft-halpern-gendispatch-consensusinformational-04

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

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on 6 September 2020.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
   license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
   and restrictions with respect to this document.  Code Components
   extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text
   as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
   provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.

Halpern & Rescorla      Expires 6 September 2020                [Page 1]
Internet-Draft             IETF Doc Consensus                 March 2020

Table of Contents

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

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 was permitted for the IESG 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.  Action

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

4.  Discussion

   The IETF procedures prior to publication of this BCP permited such
   informational or experimental publication without IETF rough
   consensus.  In 2007 the IESG issued a statement saying that no
   document will be issued without first conducting an IETF Last Call
   [IESG-STATE-AD].  While this apparently improved the situation,
   looking closely it made it worse.  Rather than publishing documents
   without verifying that there is rough consensus, as the wording in
   [RFC2026] suggests, this had the IESG explicitly publishing documents
   on the IETF Stream that have failed to achieve rough consensus.

Halpern & Rescorla      Expires 6 September 2020                [Page 2]
Internet-Draft             IETF Doc Consensus                 March 2020

   One could argue that there is a need for publishing some documents
   that the community can not agree on.  However, we have an explicit
   path 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 authority over
   the boilerplate for RFCs to make the boilerplate explicit rather than
   relying on readers to detect a missing sentence.

   Editors Note: The above paragraph and this note should be removed
   prior to publication as an RFC, as the paragraph will then be OBE.

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.  However, this procedure will prevent
   publication of IETF stream documents that have not reached rough
   consensus about their security aspects, thus potentially improving
   security aspects of IETF stream documents.

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>.

8.  Informative References

Halpern & Rescorla      Expires 6 September 2020                [Page 3]
Internet-Draft             IETF Doc Consensus                 March 2020

   [IESG-STATE-AD]
              "IESG Statement on Guidance on Area Director Sponsoring of
              Documents",
              <https://ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/statements/area-
              director-sponsoring-documents/>.

Authors' Addresses

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

Halpern & Rescorla      Expires 6 September 2020                [Page 4]