Re: [Anima] Spencer Dawkins' No Objection on draft-ietf-anima-reference-model-08: (with COMMENT)

["Michael H. Behringer" <[e-mail]>]

On 25/10/2018 05:21, Spencer Dawkins at IETF wrote:

Hi, Brian,

On Wed, Oct 24, 2018 at 10:16 PM Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]> wrote:

Hi Spencer,
On 2018-10-25 15:54, Spencer Dawkins wrote:
...

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> COMMENT:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'm confused here ...
>
>   This document describes a first, simple, implementable phase of an
>    Autonomic Networking solution.  It is expected that the experience
>    from this phase will be used in defining updated and extended
>    specifications over time.  Some topics are considered architecturally
>    in this document, but are not yet reflected in the implementation
>    specifications.  They are marked with an (*).
>
> This is true now, but when this document is approved, will it be published
> immediately (in which case, this is "truth decay", because it becomes less true
> in the unchanging RFC every time a topic is reflected in implementation
> specifications), or will it be held until all the (*)s are stable?

The intention is to publish it now; the (*) items are FFS (for further study)
in ITU or ISO speak. Should we make the last sentence explicit?:

They are marked with an (*) and are intended for further study.

Thanks for the quick reply. 

I think that would be an improvement, but if it was clear that there's a reason to include them in a document being published now, that might be useful to include. 

If it's possible that some of these items might be significantly re-thought after further study, or even dropped, that seems unhelpful to a reader in five years.

Thanks for the thoughts, Spencer. I sort of see that we might end up with a situation where one of those (*) topics completely disappears in 5 years, in which case it might indeed look odd.

However, the RFCs come with a publication date. I think it'll then be clear that 5 years ago, we were thinking in a different direction, but that over time, the views changed.

Personally, I find it very interesting to read in older documents why certain things were done or not done, considered or not considered, even if things change later on.

So, I would trust the future reader to understand that this is context at the time of publishing the RFC, and might have changed since. And I think we could well live with that. My suggestion: Leave.

Michael

Spencer

 

   Brian