Re: DMARC from the perspective of the listadmin of a bunch of SMALL community lists

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

Miles,

On 14/04/2014 07:21, Miles Fidelman wrote:
> Andrew G. Malis wrote:
>> Dave,
>>
>> I couldn't help seeing in your email:
>>
>>     The DMARC specification is not 'an IETF document'.  The current
>>     plan is to publish it as an RFC, through the 'Independent' stream,
>>     which also is /not/ an IETF activity.
>>
>>
>> when compared to the following at dmarc.org <http://dmarc.org> (on the
>> front page):
>>
>> "DMARC policies are published in the public Domain Name System (DNS),
>> and available to everyone. It is the goal of DMARC.org to submit the
>> draft specification to the IETF so that it may begin the process of
>> becoming an official Internet Standard RFC - available to everyone for
>> reference, implementation, and improvement."
>>
>> The statement on dmarc.org <http://dmarc.org> really does look like a
>> misrepresentation.
>>
> 
> Exactly.  And IETF is complicit by providing the publication vehicle and
> not loudly denying that it's an IETF standards-track protocol, with all
> the associated careful vetting, testing, and maturation over time. 
> (There's a reason that folks like Xerox and Kleenex very actively
> protect their brand.)

Hold on though. At the moment the text says, among other things,

   Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  ...

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on October 4, 2014.

If published in the Independent Stream as an RFC, it will say

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This is a contribution to the RFC Series, independently of any
   other RFC stream.  The RFC Editor has chosen to publish this
   document at its discretion and makes no statement about its value
   for implementation or deployment.  Documents approved for
   publication by the RFC Editor are not a candidate for any level of
   Internet Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.

and might also carry an explicit statement from the IESG along the
YMMV axis.

We know this doesn't prevent marketing people from telling lies
about the status of a document, but the IETF doesn't do so.

    Brian