Handling Normative References to Standards-Track Documents
RFC 4897
Document | Type |
RFC - Best Current Practice
(June 2007; Errata)
Updates RFC 3967
Also known as BCP 97
Was draft-klensin-norm-ref (individual in gen area)
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Authors | Sam Hartman , John Klensin | ||
Last updated | 2020-01-21 | ||
Stream | IETF | ||
Formats | plain text html pdf htmlized with errata bibtex | ||
Stream | WG state | (None) | |
Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
IESG | IESG state | RFC 4897 (Best Current Practice) | |
Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
Telechat date | |||
Responsible AD | Russ Housley | ||
Send notices to | klensin@jck.com, hartmans-ietf@mit.edu |
Network Working Group J. Klensin Request for Comments: 4897 BCP: 97 S. Hartman Updates: 3967 MIT Category: Best Current Practice June 2007 Handling Normative References to Standards-Track Documents Status of This Memo This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007). Abstract The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and Request for Comments (RFC) Editor have a long-standing rule that a document at a given maturity level cannot be published until all of the documents that 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 on a way to bypass this rule with RFC 3967. This document describes a simpler procedure for downward references to Standards-Track and Best Current Practice (BCP) documents, namely "note and move on". The procedure in RFC 3967 still applies for downward references to other classes of documents. In both cases, annotations should be added to such References. Klensin & Hartman Best Current Practice [Page 1] RFC 4897 Normative References June 2007 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ....................................................2 2. Terminology .....................................................3 3. Normative Reference Rule ........................................3 3.1. Source Documents Not Yet Processed by the IESG .............3 3.2. Documents Already in the RFC Editor Queue ..................4 4. Target Documents Not on the Standards Track .....................4 5. Target Documents that Can Be Referenced This Way ................4 6. Security Considerations .........................................5 7. Acknowledgements ................................................5 8. Normative References ............................................5 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 of the documents to which it makes a normative reference 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 this 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 replaces the long-standing rule for downward references to Standards-Track documents (including BCPs) that are already published. For normative references to Standards-Track and BCP documents, that rule was to hold the newer, referencing, document until the referenced ones could be brought to the appropriate maturity level. It is now possible, following procedures described below, to simply note the downward normative reference and move on. This document also updates RFC 3967. When downward references from a source document are approved under the procedure specified in that specification, we recommend that the references in the approved (source) document be annotated in the same way as references approved under this rule. Klensin & Hartman Best Current Practice [Page 2] RFC 4897 Normative References June 2007 2. Terminology A reference involves two documents, the one in which the reference is embedded and the document referenced. Where needed for clarity, these documents are referred to as the "source document" and "target document", respectively. The term "Standards-Track document", as used in this specification, is assumed to include BCPs but not Informational or Experimental documents of any variety or origin. 3. Normative Reference Rule This document specifies an alternative to holding source documents until all target documents referenced normatively are upgraded or by applying the procedure of RFC 3967. 3.1. Source Documents Not Yet Processed by the IESGShow full document text