Re: drums2?

[Pete Resnick <[e-mail]>]

On 8/16/02 at 11:24 AM +0000, Charles Lindsey wrote:

>Well reclassifying a few items into or out of the obsolete category is not
>necessarily "new technical work" is it? Surely that is just tidying up.

Nope, that's new technical work. A Draft Standards documents existing 
practice. It doesn't say how things should be.

>OTOH, if a major change in email is shortly going to happen, namely hte
>internationalization of addr-specs, then it does not seem to be the right
>time to be bringing out a new standard that merely re-establishes the old
>system.

Two things:

1. This is the way the IETF works. We add on to the old system with 
new Proposed Standards, we document the old system with Draft and 
Full Standards. It seems perfectly "right". Other standards bodies 
might operate differently.

2. If there is a major change in e-mail, it better happen in a way 
that doesn't invalidate the old system. That was what was great about 
MIME: Every MIME message is a perfectly valid 822 message, only it 
was interpreted differently. Documenting the old system (and it's not 
a "new standard") is *exactly* what needs to happen if there is going 
to be a major change: It should be perfectly clear for the proposed 
change what will conform to the current system.

This is "IETF 101" stuff. Moving to Draft Standard *removes* stuff 
from the spec that doesn't correspond to reality. It *never* adds or 
changes stuff. Perhaps your message is a good indicator that we 
haven't been moving things to Draft Standard nearly enough lately.

pr
-- 
Pete Resnick <mailto:[e-mail]>
QUALCOMM Incorporated - Direct phone: [phone], Fax: [phone]