Re: Last Call: <draft-ietf-httpbis-p1-messaging-24.txt> (Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Message Syntax and Routing) to Proposed Standard

[S Moonesamy <[e-mail]>]

At 06:07 21-10-2013, The IESG wrote:
>The IESG has received a request from the Hypertext Transfer Protocol Bis
>WG (httpbis) to consider the following document:
>- 'Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Message Syntax and Routing'
>   <draft-ietf-httpbis-p1-messaging-24.txt> as Proposed Standard
>
>The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
>final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
>[e-mail] mailing lists by 2013-11-04. Exceptionally, comments may be

In Section 1:

   'This HTTP/1.1 specification obsoletes and moves to historic status
    RFC 2616, its predecessor RFC 2068, and RFC 2145 (on HTTP
    versioning).  This specification also updates the use of CONNECT to
    establish a tunnel, previously defined in RFC 2817, and defines the
    "https" URI scheme that was described informally in RFC 2818.'

RFC 2616 is currently a Draft Standard.  According to RFC 2026:

   "A Draft Standard must be well-understood and known to be quite
    stable, both in its semantics and as a basis for developing an
    implementation."

And:

   "A Draft Standard is normally considered to be a final specification,
    and changes are likely to be made only to solve specific problems
    encountered.  In most circumstances, it is reasonable for vendors to
    deploy implementations of Draft Standards into a disruption sensitive
    environment."

Given that draft-ietf-httpbis-p1-messaging-24 and the other drafts in 
the series is an update of RFC 2616 it is appropriate to move that 
RFC to Obsolete.  The drafts in the series is a substantial revision 
(according to the Document Shepherd). I can understand moving a 
Proposed Standard to Historic.   I read the thread about Issue #254 
[1].  I didn't find much discussion about moving the specification 
(RFC 2616) which is supposed to be stable to Historic.  What are the 
implications of doing that?

RFC 2616 is updated by RFC 6266 and RFC 6585.  As a note there is 
about explanation about RFC 6266 in 
draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics-24.  In my opinion it is worth 
considering whether the HTTP status codes specified in RFC 6585 
should be included in draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics-24.  That RFC 
could be included in the series if it is less work.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

1. msg-id: [e-mail]