Re: Things that used to be clear (was Re: Evolving Documents (nee "Living Documents") side meeting at IETF105.)

[Nico Williams <[e-mail]>]

On Mon, Jul 08, 2019 at 07:22:20PM -0400, Keith Moore wrote:
> On 7/8/19 6:33 PM, Nico Williams wrote:
> 
> > xml2rfc is great, but it lacks wiki-ness, though we could probably
> > develop HTML+JS tooling to give xml2rfc that missing wiki-ness.
> 
> Actually I'd love it if xml2rfc were phased out in favor of something
> better.   IMO it imposes a significant barrier to contributions, especially
> from newer IETF participants, but really from everybody.   But I realize
> that it's hard for IETF to build and maintain real document editing tools
> that run on everybody's platforms.   It's hard enough to maintain xml2rfc. 
> And I could certainly imagine worse tools, like (gasp!) Word.
> 
> (I'm not exactly fond of wikis' UIs either.)

Well, I don't really care what it is, as long as a) we get the
typesetting right, b) we get the UI right.

Markdown seems incomplete.

XML with webby $EDITOR tooling would do.

> > Also, think of the channel binding type IANA registry, which doesn't
> > require an RFC for each type, just a specification somewhere.  A lot of
> > what we do in the IETF doesn't really need a publication process as
> > heavy-duty as the RFC publication process.
>
> Well, IANA exists for the case you're citing already.   (such things used to
> be published in RFCs)   What other cases do you have in mind?

PKIX extensions (e.g., SANs).  Kerberos extensions.  TLS extensions.
SSHv2 extensions.  And so on and on.

> > None of the above addresses the need for I-D stability markers.  We're
> > identifying a lot of related issues and thinking up possible solutions.
> > Let's not lose track of the specific needs/problems we identify.
> 
> Keeping explicit track of those things in one place seems like a good next
> step.

Yes.  And I think we have enough material to justify a BoF.