Re: [Emailcore] [ietf-smtp] Good to see new list, comments about the "purpose"
John C Klensin <john-ietf@jck.com> Thu, 30 July 2020 01:35 UTC
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Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 21:35:17 -0400
From: John C Klensin <john-ietf@jck.com>
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Subject: Re: [Emailcore] [ietf-smtp] Good to see new list, comments about the "purpose"
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Hi. Some observations and an attempt to play devil's advocate: (1) If we are going to have a separate list, let's have a separate list, not create confusion by copying ietf-smtp and having both the additional clutter and the risk of parallel discussions. So, while this note is copied to ietf-smtp for obviously reasons, I hope it will be the last, or nearly-last, cross-posting. (2) Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd really like to try to survive this week without putting something else on my virtual plate. So I would encourage others to just let this go until next week (or longer). In any event, for myself, please don't expect further responses from me until at least the weekend. And I would encourage not reading the rest of this note until those who would do so have recovered from this week. (3) Now the substantive part (and, for most of it, the devil's advocate part): Personally, I'm fine with the model of focusing on moving 5321bis and 5322bis to Internet Standard, using a separate { Applicability Statement | BCP | Rubber Ducky } as a way to accommodate whatever behavioral recommendations, comments on or pointers to other specifications, and/or "roadmap" materials for whatever mail-related specifications the WG concludes are important. As Pete said during the BOF about 5322[bis], I'd really, really, like to get 5321[bis] off my plate, do so before I retire [1], and do so with a minimum of pain and suffering. The current plan appears to me to be the best way to accomplish all of that. _However_... Despite a BOF that was organized around that narrow scope and focus, not only is it not the only way forward but it may be based on a false premise. RFC 6410 dropped the standards track from three maturity levels to two in the hope that would result in significantly more documents moving to Internet Standard. A handful of specifications that have been advanced without changes to the underlying documents aside, it is rather clear that has not happened and that, if anything, the Internet and the users of IETF specifications care even less than they did nine years ago. I do care on grounds of tidiness; Pete, Alexey, Seth, and Barry presumably care, and probably others reading this care, but it is not clear that any significant number of relevant others care. And, while that narrow focus may be the fastest way to get the work it defines done, it will still be a fair amount of work; the BOF today provided evidence that some things will be controversial and painful to resolve; and so on. The payoff may not be sufficient to justify that, which suggests two other possibilities. (a) RFC 5321 is a bad document (so was 2821). It is really a merge of three separate documents combined with excerpts from a fourth and some added applicability statement material associated with the technical specification. In part because of that merge and the age of RFCs 821 and 974, it switches organizational styles and writing style from section to section. The switch from the textbook BNF of RFC 821 to the ABNF of 2821 introduced errors; the transition to 5321 did not catch all of them and may have introduced some new ones (see Appendix H, Section H.1, of draft-klensin-rfc5321bis-03) and there is no good reason to be confident that there are none left. And, as was sort of mentioned during the BOF, the references between the two documents for syntax and the greater permissiveness of 5822 contribute to confusion. Two consecutive WGs (DRUMS and YAM) decided against doing a full rewrite --largely on the grounds that it would take more time and risk more errors -- but, if we really want to add value in this iteration, maybe we should be developing something more like: (i) A complete rewrite of 5321 (ii) An update to 5322 more or less along the lines planned -- material in 5322 only has one core document and two editors in its history while I count about eight authors/editors for what became 5321 -- but with some material torn out. (iii) A consensus, best practices, terminology and model document using RFC 5598 as a starting point. (iv) A syntax specification that draws on both 5321 and 5322 and that is referenced by both. (v) A "roadmap" document for Internet email specifications, possibly combined with A/S and/or BCP material for some of those specs. Or those could be one or more documents separate from the roadmap. Other breakdowns are clearly possible, but the goal would be to recognize that we have something of a mess on our hands and that part of the goal for producing Internet Standards is to make them clear and easy to understand, a goal that actually requires more than the narrow revisions now proposed. (b) As any of us with experience in this area should have been able to predict (and several of us did), mentioning the idea of opening up 5321 and 5322 immediately drew multiple topics out for consideration for inclusion in one or the other document (or something related). Maybe that energy is A Good Thing. If so, perhaps we should put the efforts to get 5321bis / 5322bis to Internet Standard aside for six months or a year (or longer) to give those proposals time and attention sufficient to get clear documentation and IETF consensus on whether or not they are good ideas and then to be able to demonstrate interoperability, wide deployment, etc., only then coming back to 5321bis/5322bis when we are ready to make substantive (rather than procedural) decisions about their inclusion. That time might also allow some already-published specs to mature sufficiently to be incorporated or normatively referenced. Again, I'm not suggesting either (a) or (b) above, but they appear to me to be plausible alternatives that we should consider and, if appropriate, reach consensus to explicitly reject rather than blowing them off because they are inconsistent with the path we have been on. best, john [1] Something that is feeling a lot closer right now than it did last week.
- [Emailcore] Good to see new list, comments about … Michael Peddemors
- Re: [Emailcore] [ietf-smtp] Good to see new list,… Dave Crocker
- Re: [Emailcore] Good to see new list, comments ab… John Levine
- Re: [Emailcore] [ietf-smtp] Good to see new list,… Hector Santos
- Re: [Emailcore] [ietf-smtp] Good to see new list,… John C Klensin