Re: HTTP/2 has been approved

[Yoav Nir <[e-mail]>]

> On Feb 19, 2015, at 5:16 PM, Michael Richardson <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> 
> I'm very concerned about this part:
> 
>> A key point in the protocol development process was the iteration the
>> working group did between protocol updates, and implementations and
>> testing. Certain draft protocol versions were labelled by the working group
>> as "implementation drafts", and the participants -- many web browser and
>> web server providers -- updated their implementations and tested out the
>> protocol changes. Most of the interim meetings included part of a day spent
>> on hands-on interoperability testing and discussion. The result is a
>> thoroughly validated protocol that has been shown to interoperate and that
>> meets the needs of many major stakeholders.
> 
> It sure seems to me like those "implementation drafts" are what used to be
> called proposed standards.

Proposed standards also have to go through working group last call, AD review, IETF last call, IESG review, SecDir review, GenArt review, a six-week waiting period in the RFC editor’s queue, and AUTH48. I don’t think we can afford to do that for a single document every 4-6 months, like httpbis did for HTTP/2.

> What I see is a new step in the standardization process, along with a view
> that the step after internet-draft seems to include proven interoperability.

Running code has always been part of the deal, at least as something we would like to have. Besides, the process continued even when some implementations did not interoperate.

> I propose that this document skip PS, and go straight to Internet Standard to
> accurately reflect the status of this document.

There is currently pretty close to zero deployment in the real world. A bunch of lab implementations that managed to interoperate in a bake-off is not an indication of something ready for Internet Standard. But don’t you agree that publishing a document with the bunch of lab implementations is better than publishing it without them?

Yoav