Re: [Fwd: More information requested on publication status of draft-crocker-email-arch]

[Pete Resnick <[e-mail]>]

On 5/26/09 at 10:42 PM +0100, Alexey Melnikov wrote:

>    'Internet Mail Architecture' <draft-crocker-email-arch> as a 
>Proposed Standard
>
>Please indicate your preference for publishing the document as:
>
>    1. Proposed Standard, as queried in the two Last Call notices

I believe it should be Proposed Standard.

>Also please indicate your reason(s) for this choice.

Restating something I sent to the IESG separately earlier:

This is an architecture document. We don't do these much anymore in 
the IETF, and this one is particularly strange because it is 
describing an architecture for a deployed service. However, I don't 
think that means we should shy away from it. We in the email 
community have needed this document for a *very* long time. We end up 
re-discussing architectural issues in each new WG just to get our 
terms straight and constrain solution spaces (cf. LEMONADE, MARID, 
DKIM). And we need to have a document to point to so that newcomers 
can couch their proposals in terms we understand without having to 
re-argue the model every time. But in order for it to work in these 
roles, and for it to have the ability to evolve over time, it really 
needs to be a standards track document.

Yes, there will inevitably be differences between the overall 
architecture of the system and the protocols that instantiate it. 
There are simply pragmatics which make such compromise required, and 
it is in fact a healthy tension. And yes, that fact means that some 
people will do stupid things, like claiming that where the 
architecture and protocols diverge, the architecture must win. There 
will always be such folks who don't understand that sometimes 
pragmatics prevail over architectural purity. But I think to not call 
this document what it is (i.e., an evolving community consensus on 
the email architecture) in fear of how it might be used is frankly a 
bit nuts. Let's address the problems as they arise rather than 
further diminishing the meaning of our document series.

pr
-- 
Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Incorporated - Direct phone: [phone], Fax: [phone]