Network Working Group S. Bradner
Internet-Draft Harvard U.
July 2003
An Idea for an Alternate IETF Standards Track
<draft-bradner-ietf-stds-trk-00.txt>
Status of this Memo
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Abstract
The discussion in the problem working group reached consensus that
the current IETF 3-stage standards track, as implemented, is not
working. This is a proposal for an alternate, also 3-stage,
standards track that I feel better matches current reality.
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003)
1. Introduction
The consensus in the problem working group is that the current IETF
3- stage standards track described in RFC 2026 [RFC2026] is not
working as originally intended. The draft problem statement document
[prob] says:
"The current hierarchy of Proposed, Draft and Full Standard
maturity levels for specifications is no longer being used in the
way that was envisioned when the stratification was originally
proposed. In practice, the IETF currently has a one-step
standards process that subverts the IETF's preference for
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demonstrating effectiveness through running code in multiple
interoperable implementations and compresses the process that
previously allowed specifications to mature as experience was
gained with actual implementations:"
The draft document then goes on to list 4 observations:
1/ few documents actually progress after being published as PS
2/ there is a perception that the IESG raised the quality requirement
3/ in spite of the raised quality requirement, running code is not
required
4/ there seems to be a reinforcing feedback loop involved: vendors
implement and deploy PS documents so the IESG tries to make the PS
documents better
The draft document concludes that the 3-stage process is excessive.
I disagree that is a reasonable conclusion based on the discussions.
Clearly there is consensus that there is something wrong with the
current process but I do not think that the consensus extends to
saying that any 3-stage process would get the same treatment and this
document is a proposal for a revised 3-stage process that I think
will meet the needs of vendors and of the IETF.
3. My Observations
My observations are somewhat different than those of the problem
working group. I think that that, in effect, the standards process
has been shifted one place to the left.
Vendors implement, and their customers deploy, technology based
Internet drafts as soon as the Internet drafts seem to be stable.
Thus, Internet drafts have, in effect, replaced Proposed Standard as
the first stage of the IETF standards process.
But there are significant problems with using Internet Drafts as
standards documents. Most importantly, Internet Drafts are not
stable. Internet Drafts have short lifetimes with most of them being
replaced by new versions or expiring within a few months. If a
vendor decides to implement from an Internet Draft they have to be
sure that they are implementing the same version of the Internet
Draft as the other vendors that they want to interoperate with used.
I agree that, over time, the IESG has raised the bar for the
publication of Proposed Standard documents. The current level of
review, except for not having a requirement for interoperable
implementations, is about what I expected the review would be for
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Draft Standard when RFC 2026 was published. Thus Proposed Standard
has, in effect, replaced Draft Standard as the second stage in the
IETF standards process.
Having a Draft Standard level of review for Proposed Standard
documents has raised the bar for getting working group output
published as RFCs such that vendors feel that they must implement
from Internet Drafts if they are to make it to marketplace in a
reasonable period of time.
Very few specifications are advanced to Internet Standard status so
that stage has been, in practice, removed from the IETF standards
track and Draft Standard has, in effect, become the top rung on the
standards ladder. Too few specifications are promoted to the Draft
Standard level and a revision of the IETF standards process should
try to correct that.
4. Current IETF Standards Track
RFC 2026 defines the stages on the IETF standards track as follows:
4.1 Standards Track Maturity Levels
Internet specifications go through stages of development, testing,
and acceptance. Within the Internet Standards Process, these stages
are formally labeled "maturity levels".
This section describes the maturity levels and the expected
characteristics of specifications at each level.
4.1.1 Proposed Standard
The entry-level maturity for the standards track is "Proposed
Standard". A specific action by the IESG is required to move a
specification onto the standards track at the "Proposed Standard"
level.
A Proposed Standard specification is generally stable, has resolved
known design choices, is believed to be well-understood, has received
significant community review, and appears to enjoy enough community
interest to be considered valuable. However, further experience
might result in a change or even retraction of the specification
before it advances.
Usually, neither implementation nor operational experience is
required for the designation of a specification as a Proposed
Standard. However, such experience is highly desirable, and will
usually represent a strong argument in favor of a Proposed Standard
designation.
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The IESG may require implementation and/or operational experience
prior to granting Proposed Standard status to a specification that
materially affects the core Internet protocols or that specifies
behavior that may have significant operational impact on the
Internet.
A Proposed Standard should have no known technical omissions with
respect to the requirements placed upon it. However, the IESG may
waive this requirement in order to allow a specification to advance
to the Proposed Standard state when it is considered to be useful and
necessary (and timely) even with known technical omissions.
Implementors should treat Proposed Standards as immature
specifications. It is desirable to implement them in order to gain
experience and to validate, test, and clarify the specification.
However, since the content of Proposed Standards may be changed if
problems are found or better solutions are identified, deploying
implementations of such standards into a disruption-sensitive
environment is not recommended.
4.1.2 Draft Standard
A specification from which at least two independent and interoperable
implementations from different code bases have been developed, and
for which sufficient successful operational experience has been
obtained, may be elevated to the "Draft Standard" level. For the
purposes of this section, "interoperable" means to be functionally
equivalent or interchangeable components of the system or process in
which they are used. If patented or otherwise controlled technology
is required for implementation, the separate implementations must
also have resulted from separate exercise of the licensing process.
Elevation to Draft Standard is a major advance in status, indicating
a strong belief that the specification is mature and will be useful.
The requirement for at least two independent and interoperable
implementations applies to all of the options and features of the
specification. In cases in which one or more options or features
have not been demonstrated in at least two interoperable
implementations, the specification may advance to the Draft Standard
level only if those options or features are removed.
The Working Group chair is responsible for documenting the specific
implementations which qualify the specification for Draft or Internet
Standard status along with documentation about testing of the
interoperation of these implementations. The documentation must
include information about the support of each of the individual
options and features. This documentation should be submitted to the
Area Director with the protocol action request.
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A Draft Standard must be well-understood and known to be quite
stable, both in its semantics and as a basis for developing an
implementation. A Draft Standard may still require additional or
more widespread field experience, since it is possible for
implementations based on Draft Standard specifications to demonstrate
unforeseen behavior when subjected to large-scale use in production
environments.
A Draft Standard is normally considered to be a final specification,
and changes are likely to be made only to solve specific problems
encountered. In most circumstances, it is reasonable for vendors to
deploy implementations of Draft Standards into a disruption sensitive
environment.
4.1.3 Internet Standard
A specification for which significant implementation and successful
operational experience has been obtained may be elevated to the
Internet Standard level. An Internet Standard (which may simply be
referred to as a Standard) is characterized by a high degree of
technical maturity and by a generally held belief that the specified
protocol or service provides significant benefit to the Internet
community.
A specification that reaches the status of Standard is assigned a
number in the STD series while retaining its RFC number.
5. An Alternate Standards Track
I would like to propose an alternate IETF standards track with a new
stage inserted before Proposed Standard, combining Draft Standard and
Internet Standard and retaining Proposed Standard as it has evolved
over the years.
Part of the problem we have been seeing with getting timely
publication of IETF specifications is that once people start
implementing the technology it often seems counterproductive to
dedicate effort to finishing off the documents. If implementations
of Internet Drafts achieve success in the marketplace, as they did
with MPLS, it may seem that it is not worth spending time tweaking
successive generations of Internet Drafts in order to get something
the IESG is willing to publish as a Proposed Standard then, if that
achieves widespread success in the market, fiddle with the document
again and do the bookkeeping needed to get it published as a Draft
Standard. The prerequisites for getting something published as an
Internet Standard seem to many people to be fuzzy at best. In
addition, the current standards track steps did not do much to
encourage early implementations, which are the best way to check to
see that a specification is clear enough for implementers to use.
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This alternate set of stages tries to encourage vendors to implement
specifications and the comments with the descriptions of each stage
attempt to provide guidance for the IESG in implementing reviews for
each stage.
RFC 2026 would have to be revised in order to put any change of this
type into effect. That could be done by replacing RFC 2026 itself
with a whole new document or by writing a short document that updates
the standards track part of RFC 2026.
5.1 Alternate Standards Track Maturity Levels
Internet specifications go through stages of development, testing,
and acceptance. Within the Internet Standards Process, these stages
are formally labeled "maturity levels".
This section describes a set of alternate maturity levels and the
expected characteristics of specifications at each level.
5.2 Stable Snapshot
The entry-level maturity for the standards track is "Stable
Snapshot". A specific action by the IESG is required to move a
specification onto the standards track at the "Stable Snapshot"
level.
A Stable Snapshot specification is generally stable, has resolved
known design choices, is believed to be well-understood, has received
significant community review, and appears to enjoy enough community
interest to be considered valuable. However, further experience
might result in a change or even retraction of the specification
before it advances.
A Stable Snapshot should have no unknown technical omissions with
respect to the requirements placed upon it. Any such omissions must
be noted in the document. No such omission can endanger the security
or stability of the Internet or of networks where the technology
might be used.
Implementers should treat Stable Snapshots as immature, pre-standard,
specifications. It is desirable to implement them in order to gain
experience and to validate, test, and clarify the specification.
However, since the content of Stable Snapshots will be changed if
problems are found or better solutions are identified, and will be
changed as the technology is finalized, deploying implementations of
such technologies into a disruption-sensitive environment is not
recommended.
Comments:
This stage is designed to institutionalize and encourage the
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current practice of vendors implementing from Internet Drafts
while providing a way that a working group can indicate that they
feel that a technology is stable enough to be so implemented and
to provide a long-lived, unlike Internet Drafts, snapshot that the
vendors can implement. Having vendors implement technology is an
important quality check and meets the "running code" requirement
of our motto. We want to encourage implementations whenever we
can but this does need to be balanced with
This is almost the same definition as RFC 2026 has for Proposed
Standard. The major difference is that some of the technical
requirements might not have yet been met. This is OK as long as
any such holes in the specification are carefully noted in the
document, except that there needs to be a complete enough security
component so as to not endanger the networks where the technology
is to be used, and that the technology not endanger the wellbeing
of the network it will be run on. For example, a technology that
requires reliable data transmission but is not compliant with RFC
2914 [RFC2914] would not be acceptable. The exact guidelines for
the level of security required for a Stable Snapshot will evolve
over time.
In reviewing an Internet Draft for publication as a Stable
Snapshot the IESG only needs to be sure that the working group has
a reason to think that the technology is at a mature enough level
that implementers can start to play with it and that the minimum
security and 'health of the net' requirements have been met. The
IESG should not try to ensure that the text is clear and
unambiguous, the vendors will find that out while implementing and
provide feedback to the working group. The IESG should not do a
careful technology review as a precondition for publication as a
Stable Snapshot. This process should be lightweight, not taking
too much time on the part of the IESG or effort on the part of the
working group and authors.
The name, "Stable Snapshot" was chosen to clearly indicate that
this is a pre-standard stage and to ensure that marketing people
cannot easily misrepresent the status but there may be a better
name that accomplishes the same goals.
5.3 Proposed Standard
A Proposed Standard specification is generally stable, has resolved
known design choices, is believed to be well-understood, has received
significant community review, and appears to enjoy enough community
interest to be considered valuable.
Usually, neither implementation nor operational experience is
required for the designation of a specification as a Proposed
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Standard. However, such experience is highly desirable, and will
usually represent a strong argument in favor of a Proposed Standard
designation.
Generally some documented level of implementation and/or operational
experience is required prior to granting Proposed Standard status.
However, the IESG may waive this requirement in order to allow a
specification to advance to the Proposed Standard state when it is
considered to be useful and necessary (and timely) even without any
known implementations.
A Proposed Standard should have no known technical omissions with
respect to the requirements placed upon it.
Implementers should treat Proposed Standards as stable, but perhaps
not final, specifications. A Proposed Standard must be well-
understood and known to be quite stable, both in its semantics and as
a basis for developing an implementation. A Proposed Standard may
still require additional or more widespread field experience, since
it is possible for implementations based on Proposed Standard
specifications to demonstrate unforeseen behavior when subjected to
large-scale use in production environments.
Comments:
The requirements for publication as a Proposed Standard are mostly
the same as currently in RFC 2026 for Proposed Standard with the
addition of a requirement for at least some implementation
experience.
The IESG review for Proposed Standard could stay just like it is.
The IESG should do the same careful technical review and a review
to ensure that the language of the document is clear and precise
as it has been doing for quite a while.
Because most specifications for which publication as a Proposed
Standard is requested will have been implemented I would expect
that the IESG review will generally take less effort since the
implementers experience will have uncovered unclear language and
some or all technical issues, at least for the parts of the
specification that had been implemented.
There should be some documentation to show that there has been at
least one implementation of a specification before the IESG
authorizes the publication of the specification as a Proposed
Standard. But the documentation does not need to be so detailed
that it shows which individual options have been implemented. A
list of the names of people or companies who have said they had
implemented the specification should be sufficient.
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Before adoption of a new description of Proposed Standard the IPR-
related aspects should be revisited in list of the work in the IPR
working group but I have not done that here.
5.4 Internet Standard
A specification from which at least two independent and interoperable
implementations from different code bases have been developed, and
for which sufficient successful operational experience has been
obtained, may be elevated to the "Internet Standard" level. For the
purposes of this section, "interoperable" means to be functionally
equivalent or interchangeable components of the system or process in
which they are used. If patented or otherwise controlled technology
is required for implementation, the separate implementations must
also have resulted from separate exercise of the licensing process.
Elevation to Internet Standard is a major advance in status,
indicating a strong belief that the specification is mature and will
be useful.
The requirement for at least two independent and interoperable
implementations applies to all of the options and features of the
specification. In cases in which one or more options or features
have not been demonstrated in at least two interoperable
implementations, the specification may advance to the Internet
Standard level only if those options or features are removed.
The Working Group chair is responsible for documenting the specific
implementations which qualify the specification for Draft or Internet
Standard status along with documentation about testing of the
interoperation of these implementations. The documentation must
include information about the support of each of the individual
options and features. This documentation should be submitted to the
Area Director with the protocol action request.
A Internet Standard (which may simply be referred to as a Standard)
must be well-understood and known to be stable, both in its semantics
and as a basis for developing an implementation. An Internet
Standard is characterized by a high degree of technical maturity and
by a generally held belief that the specified protocol or service
provides significant benefit to the Internet community.
An Internet Standard is considered to be a final specification, and
changes should only be made to solve specific problems encountered.
Comments:
The description here is a combination of the descriptions of Draft
Standard and Internet Standard in RFC 2026.
One issue we have had over the years is just what does a working
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group chair have to do to show multiple implementations of the
base specification and all of the features. I have always felt
that a simple spread sheet showing each feature, how many vendors
claim to have the feature, and a checkbox to indicate that two or
more vendors claim that they have tested implementations of the
feature, would be just fine. But this turns out to be quite
complex in some cases (see the Implementer's report for http 1.1
as an example). I am not sure if this turns out to be actually
too much of an effort or just seems like too much of an effort. I
still think it seems like about the right thing but the barrier to
reach Internet Standard should be just as high as it needs to be
but no higher.
Since, in reality, there was little difference between the
requirements in RFC 2026 for Draft Standard and Internet Standard,
mostly a need to show market acceptance in some way, there seems
to be no technical reason to preserve the different labels.
5.5 Minimum time in each stage.
It seems to me that there needs to be a minimum time that a document
must sit at a stage before it can move onward (as is the case in RFC
2026) just to be sure that problems are uncovered.
I'm not sure if there is any way to figure out the ideal time so I
would suggest that 6 months would be enough (as long as the rest of
the requirements for the next level have been met).
6. Summary
I've put out this proposal to stimulate discussion. There are a lot
of details that would be needed to be worked out before actually
proceeding but I do think that this would do the job of
reestablishing the idea that it is worth the effort to move a
document along the standards track while preserving the "running
code" concept.
7. Security Considerations
This document relates to IETF process, not any particular technology,
thus it raises no particular security concerns.
8. Informative References
[RFC2026] Bradner, S. Ed., "The Internet Standards Process --
Revision 3," October 1996, RFC 2026
[prob] Davies, E. Ed., "IETF Problem Statement," work in progress,
July 2003
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[RFC2914] Floyd, S., "Congestion Control Principles," September 2000,
RFC 2914
9. Authors Address
Scott Bradner
Harvard University
29 Oxford St.
Cambridge MA, 02138
sob@harvard.edu +1 617 495 3864
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