Re: Last Call: Recognising RFC1984 as a BCP

[Harald Alvestrand <[e-mail]>]

Speaking from my own experience of a similar document:

At the time of issuing RFC 2804, "IETF Policy on Wiretapping" (which is
also Informational), the thinking of the IESG and IAB was that the IESG
and IAB (a finite set of individuals) were able to make a strong
statement that "we have consensus on this position", while attempting to
make a BCP (which implies that the IETF community has consensus on the
position) was much more difficult - there would always be SOME people
who would not want to be counted as part of the consensus, and others
who would argue that some other people (who were not part of the debate)
would disagree, and would therefore invalidate the idea of there being a
consensus. (I think the logic of this argument is suspect, but that's
another matter.)

The thinking then was that we should issue an Informational because we
could do that in a timely fashion, but wouldn't be able to get a BCP in
a timely fashion.

The times may be different. We may have established a smooth IETF
consensus on RFC 1984 over the intervening years, and BCP would just be
an acknowledgement of that status.

I am willing to be counted as part of the consensus for RFC 1984 as a BCP.

Harald