Re: The Evils of Informational RFC's

[Olaf Kolkman <[e-mail]>]

On Sep 8, 2010, at 11:17 PM, Bob Hinden wrote:

> Eric,
> 
> On Sep 8, 2010, at 1:05 PM, Eric Burger wrote:
> 
>> I would offer RFC 5211 is PRECISELY the kind of RFC the IETF should NOT be publishing!  I can see the press release now: "IETF publishes IPv6 transition plan."   NO ONE OUTSIDE THE IETF has a clue the RFC Editor is NOT the IETF.  "RFC = IETF" is the *reality*, no matter how much we say it is not.
> 
> The IETF did not publish it, the RFC-Editor published it.  
> 
>> For that matter, would the world notice if the press release made the accurate statement, "The RFC Editor, who publishes all IETF protocols, publishes IPv6 transition plan"?  What rational person would not make the leap that the IETF published the document?
> 
> Anyone who actually read the document.  If we are going to worry about what people think who don't read our documents, we should stop now.  



Also see RFC 5741 work on which was inspired on exactly this sort of discussion.


Quoting from that:

   For non-IETF stream documents, a reference to Section 2 of this RFC
   is added with the following sentence:

      "Documents approved for publication by the [stream approver --
      currently, one of: "IAB", "IRSG", or "RFC Editor"] are not a
      candidate for any level of Internet Standard; see Section 2 of RFC
      5741."

   For IETF stream documents, a similar reference is added for BCP and
   Standards Track documents:

      "Further information on [BCPs or Internet Standards] is available
      in Section 2 of RFC 5741 ."




--Olaf


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Olaf M. Kolkman                        NLnet Labs
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http://www.nlnetlabs.nl/               1098 XG Amsterdam