Re: [art] Call for Consensus: Re: On BCP 190

[Mark Nottingham <[e-mail]>]

John,

> On 20 Aug 2019, at 4:06 pm, John C Klensin <[e-mail]> wrote:

[ many words elided ]

> The thing I find objectionable about BCP 190 is that it
> specifies a design model for URIs generally and then tries to
> insist that new work conform to it.

[...]

> It arguably does not so much update 3986 as it reinterprets some of its
> provisions.   While objectionable, that would be ok in a BCP if
> "BCP" were taken seriously as a general statement of preferred
> practices, not a "you can't do this in the future, no matter
> what the circumstances, because we said so" protocol constraint.

[...]

> So,
> if RFC 7320 represents  best current thinking as of July 2014
> and some document comes along that represents newer thinking,
> potentially involving conditions that 7320 did not consider, it
> is probably entirely reasonable to insist that the authors of
> the new document explain those conditions and resulting
> thinking.   It is closer to that Procrustean bed if those
> authors have to apply for an exception to BCP 190 or relitigate
> it as a condition for moving forward.

As has been said, I think that we failed to distinguish between practices that could be harmful to other uses -- and therefore should be prohibited -- and those that are just ones you want to think about before engaging in. I committed to performing an update to reflect this, so before we spill too many bits on this topic, perhaps it would be good to look at that and then discuss.

To that end, I've just published a -00 [1] that's just a copy of the BCP; I'll do some refinement along the lines above and then see where we're at.

Cheers,

1. draft-nottingham-rfc7320bis, although <https://mnot.github.io/I-D/rfc7320bis/> might be easier on the eyes.

--
Mark Nottingham   https://www.mnot.net/