Re: Should the RFC Editor publish an RFC in less than 2 months?

Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com> Wed, 28 November 2007 20:55 UTC

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Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 09:54:47 +1300
From: Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com>
Organization: University of Auckland
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Subject: Re: Should the RFC Editor publish an RFC in less than 2 months?
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On 2007-11-29 09:21, IETF Chair wrote:
...
> If we receive an appeal before the RFC is published, we can put a hold on
> the document, preventing pblication until the appeal has been studied. 
> However, we have no way to pull an RFC back if it is published before the
> appeal arrives.  As we all know, once an RFC is published, it cannot be
> changed.  Thus, the RFCs form an archival series.  If we find a bug in an
> RFC, we write a revised RFC that obsoletes the one that contains the
> error.  So, what should we do if there is a successful appeal after the
> RFC is published?

I thought about this a bit when the RFC Editor started to catch up and
accelerate; it's excellent news that it's no longer a theoretical
question, so kudos to the Editor team (and IANA, who also have a role
to play in getting many RFCs out).

My conclusion is that the number of appeals is relatively low. I'd hate
for the low risk of having to roll back an approval to slow down all
publications. So my personal preference is to not hold up publication
(unless there is good reason to expect an appeal), but to add a new
RFC status, let's call it PROVISIONAL for the sake of argument, that
would be applied if an appeal is received within the 2 month window
but after publication. If the appeal succeeds, the status can be
changed as appropriate (likely to HISTORIC), and if the appeal fails
it can revert to its original value.

      Brian

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