Re: exploring the process of self retiring one's name from an RFC

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

Alex,

With all respect to the other suggestions, Aaron has it right.
Interestingly, he is proposing a solution that has was on the
radar for 30 or 40 years (and I presume is still).   The
solution to a problem with an RFC, _any_ problem, is another
RFC.  Publishing the same document without your name on it is
probably a non-starter, not only because all of your co-authors
would need to agreed, but because the new document would need to
go through the same review, Last Call, and IESG decision process
the first one did and find it hard to imagine that would not end
up requiring some rewriting as well as taking up a lot of time.
But writing a critique and trying to get it published is always
in order.

I would suggest one variation on Aaron's suggestion: rather than
going directly to the Independent Submission Editor, have a
discussion with one of the relevant ADs about a commentary,
revised analysis, or other explanation about possible
sponsorship for publication in the IETF Stream.  If you can get
agreement to do that (and you are willing to put in the work),
you could structure the new document to update with existing one
(not by removing your name but by providing new information to
the community).  Upon publication, that would result in "updated
by" information in the metadata of the original and make your
position much more obvious than simply publishing a critique.
That would be much harder to accomplish with an Independent
Submission because cross-stream updates have historically been
contentious for various good reasons and possibly a few bad
ones.  If the AD(s) are not receptive, the Independent Stream is
an obvious second choice but, as Aaron hints, such a submission
would almost certainly have to be about "why that was a bad
idea" or "why you are more convinced it is a bad idea now than
you concluded at the time".   

Just to get your name removed, or even getting a subsequent
document published to remove it, is likely to be impossible; the
price of the nearest approximations is that you will need to do
some substantive and informative writing.

    john


--On Friday, April 19, 2019 11:59 -0400 Aaron Falk
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> On 19 Apr 2019, at 6:00, Alexandre Petrescu wrote:
> 
>> I consider using such process to retire my name from the RFC
>> that analyses the 64bit boundary analysis.
>> 
>> For some reason I got in that group, then participated
>> positively to  the
>> discussion, and I let myself tempted to have my name up on
>> the first page of a published RFC; but finally, after much
>> time and reflexion, I think I do not agree with the effects
>> of this RFC.
> 
> 
> Sounds like you may want to write an independent submission
> RFC on why you now think RFC7608 is a bad idea.
> 
> --aaron