Network Working Group H. Alvestrand
Internet-Draft E. Lear
Updates: 2026 (if approved) Cisco Systems
Expires: September 24, 2004 March 26, 2004
Moving documents to Historic: A procedure
draft-alvestrand-newtrk-historical-00.txt
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on September 24, 2004.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This document describes a procedure for performing the downgrading of
old Proposed and Draft standards described in RFC 2026 without
placing an unreasonable load on groups charged with performing other
tasks in the IETF.
It defines a new group, called the "Commission for Protocol
Obsolesence", which shall recommend to the IESG downgrading or
progressing documents on the IETF standards track. Ultimate
decisions still rest of with the IESG, with appeal to the IAB.
1. Introduction and history
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RFC 2026, and RFC 1602 before it, specified timelines for review of
immature (draft or proposed) standards. The purpose of such review
was to determine whether such documents should be advanced, retired,
or developed further.[1]
This procedure has never been followed in the history of the IETF.
Since this procedure has not been followed, members of the community
have suggested that the retiring of a document to Historic is a
significant event, which should be justified carefully - leading to
the production of documents such as RFC 2556 (OSI connectionless
transport services on top of UDP Applicability Statement for Historic
Status) and RFC 3166 (Request to Move RFC 1433 to Historic Status).
Such documents require significant time and effort on the part of
authors, area directors, and the RFC Editor. Indeed such effort
should be reserved for advancing or maintaining immature standards.
Hence, no document should be required for an immature standard to be
retired to Historic status.
2. New Decommissioning Procedure
The decommissioning procedure for standards has the following steps:
o The Commission determines that a set of documents is eligible for
reclassification as Historic according to RFC 2026. It's up to the
Commission to decide which documents to tackle next.
o The Commission attempts to find out whether there are mailing
lists or contactable individuals relevant to the technology
described in the documents.
o For each standard in question, the Commission sends out a message
to the IETF list and the lists deemed relevant, asking for
implementation experience and active usage.
o If there are reports of implementation experience and/or active
usage, the RFC is moved into the Commission's Individual
Decommissioning Procedure.
o The Commission sends to the IESG the remaining list of documents
it recommends be reclassified as Historic along with a record of
steps taken to identify that standard's use. That record should
include pointers to archives, as well as a log of actions taken to
seek out usage.
o The IESG will respond to the Commission's recommendation with a
message to the IETF Announce list. If it agrees to the change in
status, the standard is marked Historic. It may also request more
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information from the Commission or outright disagree.
3. Individual Decommissioning Procedure
This procedure is intended for use when one needs to consider
evidence before deciding what to do with a document.
Because of the time that has passed without applying the 2026 rule,
this document describes three alternatives, not two:
o Maintenance on the standards track (per 2026)
o Reclassification as Historic (per 2026)
o Reclassification as Informational.(XXX Do we require a new
classification?)
Maintenance on the standards track at this point demands attention
from the IETF if a document is not full standard. Such a document
should either be advanced by the IESG, or a working group should be
formed to address its shortcomings. The last alternative is intended
for cases where the technology is in active use, perhaps in a small
community, and it is clearly not reasonable to expect it to advance
on the standards track. (XXX DRAFT NOTE: Cannot a small community
continue to use a Historic standard, such as, oh, SNMPv1?)
3.1 Procedure
The Commission takes input from all sources it cares to take input
from. As it does so it will keep an archive and a record of all such
input. Once it determines a recommended action, it sends a
recommendation to the IESG along with a pointer to the record, and
the IESG will announce this to the IETF community if it agrees with
the recommendation.
3.2 Evaluation criteria
The decision on when to ask for reclassification is made by the
Commission.
Criteria that should be considered are:
o Implementations. A spec that is unimplemented should go to
Historic.
o Usage. A protocol or feature that is completely unused should go
to Historic. A protocol or feature that is used, and found useful,
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but only in limited circumstances, should go Informational. XXX
o Potential for harm. A protocol or feature that has been shown to
create opeational problems that clearly outstrip its benefits
should go to Historic even if there is some usage of it. RFC 1137
- "Mapping between full RFC 822 and RFC 822 with restricted
encoding" - was reclassified for that reason.
o Interest in further work. If there is a reasonable expectation
that the specification will be updated or advanced within a
reasonable timeframe, the Commission should do nothing.
4. Selection of the Commission
NOTE IN DRAFT: This is intended to be simple, and convey the idea
that signing up for this is an 1-year stint, not a permanent
position.
The IESG will send out a call for volunteers for the Commission once
a year, and will choose from the volunteers. A current member of the
Commission may volunteer again if he/she wants to.
The IESG will appoint as many members to the commission as it deems
appropriate, along with a chair. The chair will report every six
months via electronic mail to the IETF Announce mailing list on the
Commission's progress.
The Commission otherwise organizes its own work.
The IESG may cut short the term of the commission and send out a new
call for volunteers if it finds that reasonable.
Normative References
[1] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP
9, RFC 2026, October 1996.
Authors' Addresses
Harald Tveit Alvestrand
Cisco Systems
Weidemanns vei 27
Trondheim 7043
NO
EMail: harald@alvestrand.no
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Eliot Lear
Cisco Systems
170 W. Tasman Dr.
San Jose, CA 95134
US
Phone: +1 408 527 4020
EMail: lear@cisco.com
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