Network Working Group J. Klensin
Internet-Draft April 3, 2006
Expires: October 5, 2006
A Process Experiment in Normative Reference Handling
draft-klensin-norm-ref-01.txt
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Abstract
The IETF and RFC Editor have a long-standing rule that a document at
a given maturity level cannot be published until all documents it
references as normative are at that maturity level or higher. This
rule has sometimes resulted in very long publication delays for
documents and some claims that it was a major obstruction to
advancing documents in maturity level. The IETF agreed to a way to
bypass this rule with RFC 3967. This document proposes a one-year
process experiment in which the "hold on normative reference" rule
will be replaced by a "note downward normative reference and move on"
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approach.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1. Documents Not Yet Processed by the IESG . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.2. Documents Already in RFC Editor Queue . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Documents that Can Be Referenced This Way . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Discussion of Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
8. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
9. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 8
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1. Introduction
The IETF and RFC Editor have a long-standing rule (see, e.g., RFC
2026, Section 4.2.4 [RFC2026] and the extended discussion in RFC 3967
[RFC3967]) that a document at a given maturity level cannot be
published until all documents it references as normative are at that
maturity level or higher. This rule has sometimes resulted in very
long publication delays for documents and some claims that it was a
major obstruction to advancing documents in maturity level.
Recognizing the problems that rule sometimes caused, RFC 3967
established an exception procedure for normative downward references
under some specific circumstances. Perhaps because of its fairly
stringent requirements, RFC 3967 has not proven adequate either to
clear the backlog of documents awaiting upgraded documents or to
prevent additional documents from joining that queue.
This document assumes that downward references are possible only to
documents that are already published or approved for publication.
While downward references to, e.g., Internet Drafts, are
theoretically possible, they are not contemplated here.
This document proposes a one-year process experiment in which the
"hold on normative reference" rule will be replaced by a "note
downward normative reference and move on" approach.
2. Terminology
A reference involves two documents, the one in which the reference is
imbedded and the document referenced. Where needed for clarity,
these documents are referred to as the "source document" and "target
document" respectively.
3. Proposal
This document specifies a one-year RFC 3933 [RFC3933] process
experiment (see the next section) that creates an alternative to
holding source documents until all target documents referenced
normatively are upgraded or by applying the procedure of RFC 3967.
Different procedures apply to source documents that have not yet been
processed by the IESG versus those that are already in the RFC Editor
queue.
3.1. Documents Not Yet Processed by the IESG
An author or editor who requires a normative downward reference uses
the following very simple procedure:
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o The reference text (i.e., in the "Normative References" section of
the source document) is written as usual.
o A note is included in the reference text that indicates that the
reference is to a document of a lower maturity level, that some
caution should be used since it may be less stable than the
document from which it is being referenced, and, optionally,
explaining why the downward reference is appropriate.
The IESG may, at its discretion, specify the exact text to be used.
These annotations are part of the source document. If members of the
community consider either the downward reference or the annotation
text to be inappropriate, those issues can be raised at any time in
the document life cycle, just as with any other text in the document.
There is no separate review on these references.
At the option of the author, similar notes may be attached to non-
normative references.
3.2. Documents Already in RFC Editor Queue
The IESG may, at its discretion, specify a procedure to be applied to
documents that are already in the RFC Editor queue, awaiting
referenced documents. That procedure might involve asking the RFC
Editor to apply an appropriate annotation to all such documents, or
to a selective list of documents. It might alternately involve the
application of some additional review process to those documents,
such as by directorates or other AD-appointed review committees,
working group chairs, or appointed experts, each subject to appeal.
That list of options is not intended to limit what the IESG might
specify, but to give some indication of possibilities. While nothing
in this document would prevent the IESG from concluding that each
document now on hold for normative references should be put through
an additional Last Call to eliminate the restriction, that decision
would definitely not be in the spirit of the experiment proposed
here.
4. Documents that Can Be Referenced This Way
The "downward reference by annotation" model specified here is
applicable to only the following types of target documents.
o Published RFCs at lower maturity levels, either standards track or
informational.
o Internet-Drafts of Standards Track documents for which IESG review
has been completed and Protocol Action or Document Action notices
have been issued. References to such documents would presumably
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require the IESG and RFC Editor to work out some appropriate
reference mechanism and format. Standard industry practice would
be consistent with pre-assignment of an RFC number for the target
document and a notation of "forthcoming" in the source document.
Obviously such downward references are part of the relevant source
document at last call and subject to comments from the community.
5. Discussion of Experiment
Several claims have been made about problems that are being caused by
the "no downward references" rule. The number of documents waiting
for lower-maturity documents in the RFC Editor queue is objective and
easily-measured. But claims about how many documents would be
completed and processed to higher maturity levels if the normative
reference rule were eliminated are impossible to validate without
this type of experiment. Consequently, this experiment should serve
three purposes:
1. Prevent any new documents from entering the "hold for normative
reference" queue for documents already published (see Section 4
unless there is an explicit decision made that doing so is
desirable.
2. At the option of the IESG, and under rules it adopts, clear the
RFC Editor's current "hold for normative reference" queue of
documents that reference those already published or approved.
3. Permit the community to examine questions of how much effective
elimination of the normative reference rule increases document
throughput and the number of documents being advanced.
Should the community conclude that the experiment had undesirable
impacts, i.e., that a more traditional view of downward references
was appropriate, we will have some set of documents that will have
been approved and published under these rules. It might then be
appropriate to note in the various indexes that those documents
contained dependencies that would not generally be acceptable, at
least until those dependencies were resolved,
6. Security Considerations
This document specifies an IETF procedure. It is not believed to
raise any security issues although, in principle, relaxing the
normative downward reference rules for references associated with
security mechanisms could make a specification less stable and hence
less secure.
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7. IANA Considerations
This document requires no actions by the IANA.
8. Acknowledgments
This proposal was suggested by a comment by Spencer Dawkins and many
complaints about the negative impact of the current rules. The
author is unsure about the validity of some of those complaints; the
proposal is, in part, a way to test the validity question. Spencer
also provided helpful comments on a preliminary draft.
9. Normative References
[RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision
3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996.
[RFC3933] Klensin, J. and S. Dawkins, "A Model for IETF Process
Experiments", BCP 93, RFC 3933, November 2004.
[RFC3967] Bush, R. and T. Narten, "Clarifying when Standards Track
Documents may Refer Normatively to Documents at a Lower
Level", BCP 97, RFC 3967, December 2004.
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Author's Address
John C Klensin
1770 Massachusetts Ave, #322
Cambridge, MA 02140
USA
Phone: +1 617 491 5735
Email: john-ietf@jck.com
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