Re: [apps-discuss] Updating the status of SPF

[Frank Ellermann <[e-mail]>]

On 13 August 2011 00:24, Andrew Sullivan wrote:

> This is exactly the process objection I have.

Hi, I'm not sure how obvious this is for others, but SPF
is completely unsuited as an "example" or "precedence" in
more general two vs. three steps procedural discussions.

When RFC 4408 was published as an "IETF experiment" SPF
was already widely deployed, and the RFC was in fact the
result of experiments based on earlier Internet drafts,
and submitted as a "proposed standard".

For let's say "non-technical reasons" it ended up as an
experimental RFC, and anybody interested in the details
can dig through old MARID and spf-discuss mail archives,
or try to reconstruct the SPF history from footnotes in
the appeal to the IAB -- NOT RECOMMENDED unless you have
a grim sense of humour.

In other words, SPF is not really the first incarnation
of a new "four steps" procedure, but there are certainly
errata justifying a 4408bis, and I'd be interested to
work on that if it is for "standard tracks".  Otherwise
I'd say that implementors should find the errata page on
openspf.org, its URL is not affected by the "status" of
erratum 994.

-Frank