Re: The IETF, Standards process, and the impact on the RFC series document production

[Nico Williams <[e-mail]>]

On Fri, Oct 04, 2019 at 01:07:57PM -0400, John C Klensin wrote:
> --On Friday, October 4, 2019 11:48 -0500 Nico Williams
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
> > We could design such a naming scheme and bolt it onto the
> > existing RFCs, much like STDs have distinct (and stable)
> > numbers from the RFCs that back them.
> > 
> > E.g., we could have names like:
> > 
> >   STD-DNS-xx
> >   RFC-DNS-xx-vv
> > 
> >   STD-PKIX-xxx
> >   RFC-PKIX-xxx-vv
> >...
> 
> I won't try to spend the time today to explain why that would
> cause a different set of problems other than to note that we

Maybe you can try tomorrow then?  I don't see any obvious problems.

> often process documents that don't fall neatly into one category
> and that would just cause other arguments and uncertainties.

I don't see how that's an issue.  Those can just get a plain ol' RFC
number.

>      [...].  There were similar, earlier proposals for grouping
> and status documents, as well as attempts to get more effort
> into Applicability Statements with the same intent.  All of
> those efforts met the same fate: the IESG wasn't interested in
> them or willing to initiate IETF Last Calls.  And no one in the
> community was willing to press that, e.g., by appealing the
> IESG's non-action of WG Last Call requests, at least in part
> because of concern that the appeal process would be damaging to
> the community and that the IESG would, even if they were told to
> rethink the decision, either reaffirm it or figure out other
> ways to kill an idea they didn't like.

Perhaps so, but a) the IESG is not an unchanging body, b) this seems
like as good a time as any to bring this up again.  If no one cares for
this, then no one cares for this.  Let's see.

Nico
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