Re: PS Characterization Clarified

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

--On Monday, 02 September, 2013 14:09 -0400 Scott O Bradner
<[e-mail]> wrote:

>> There is at least one ongoing effort right now that has the
>> potential to reclassify a large set of Proposed Standard RFCs
>> that form the basis of widely used technology. These types of
>> efforts can have a relatively big effect on the standards
>> status of the most commonly used RFCs. Do we want to do more?
>> Can we do more?
> 
> seems like a quite bad idea (as Randy points out)
> 
> take extra effort and get some interoperability data

More than that.  Unless we want to deserve the credibility
problems we sometimes accuse others of having, nothing should be
a full standard, no matter how popular, unless it reflects good
engineering practice.  I think there is more flexibility for
Proposed Standards, especially if they come with commentary or
applicability statements, but I believe that, in general, the
community should consider "bad design" or "bad engineering
practice" to fall into the "known defect" category of RFC 2026.
If RFC 6410 requires, or even allows, that we promote things
merely because they are popular, then I suggest there is
something seriously wrong with it.

   john