Re: Use of "unassigned" in IANA registries

[Lars Eggert <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

On 2011-1-18, at 16:32, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
> That would work IF the reason this is happening is that people don't
> understand that unassigned means reserved for future assignment.

that *is* the reason, for at least those cases that I have been involved in.

> But I rather suspect that the reason that this is happening is that people
> know full well that there is a process and choose to ignore it because they
> either can't be bothered to put up with the hassle or don't think that the
> application will be accepted.

Suspect all you want, but it doesn't match my experience.

> SRV code points are an even bigger mess because there isn't even a proper
> registry to enter them in.

We're very close to fixing this: http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-tsvwg-iana-ports

> I think it is rather more likely that the root cause here goes back to the
> fact that the old three track standard process has broken down and the
> criteria for acceptance as a PROPOSED standard are now essentially those for
> DRAFT.

RFC2026 has almost nothing to do with IANA allocation procedures. (The only relation is that some registries require a Standards Action, but even then it is irrelevant which level of the standards track the RFC is on. And yes, it's somewhat more difficult to have a Standards Action occur than passing the bar for the other RFC5226 policies, but then again, few registries actually need a Standards Action.)

Lars