Re: RFC index with status

[Ned Freed <[e-mail]>]

> > And indeed there is, the latest "INTERNET OFFICIAL PROTOCOL STANDARDS"
> > RFC, which happens to be RFC2200.

> > C'mon folks, this isn't hard.  I have a bookmark in my favorite Web
> > browser to a page that is headed, "Locate online RFCs by title, number,
> > or author".  I type "official<cr>" in the little box, and behold! A
> > list of all versions of the "INTERNET OFFICIAL PROTOCOL STANDARDS" RFC.
> > Point and click, and voila, complete RFC status information.

> The problem is, STD 1 is issued quarterly.  That is a long time to wait
> for updated status.  As an example, RFC 2153 is the last RFC listed in
> STD 1 (as RFC 2200), yet as of right now the actual last RFC is 2198.

Three months is much too long to wait. Even worse, three months is overly
optimistic. Let's take a look at how often STD 1 has been published:

2200  S   J. Postel, "INTERNET OFFICIAL PROTOCOL STANDARDS", 06/10/1997.  
           (Pages=39) (Format=.txt) (STD 1) 

2000  S   J. Postel, "INTERNET OFFICIAL PROTOCOL STANDARDS", 02/24/1997.  
           (Pages=56) (Format=.txt) (Obsoletes RFC1920) (STD 1) 
           (Obsoleted by RFC2200)

1920  S   J. Postel, "INTERNET OFFICIAL PROTOCOL STANDARDS", 03/22/1996.  
           (Pages=40) (Format=.txt) (Obsoletes RFC1880) (STD 1) 
           (Obsoleted by RFC2000)

1880  S   J. Postel, "INTERNET OFFICIAL PROTOCOL STANDARDS", 11/29/1995.  
           (Pages=38) (Format=.txt) (Obsoletes RFC1800) (STD 1) 
           (Obsoleted by RFC1920) 

1800  S   J. Postel, "INTERNET OFFICIAL PROTOCOL STANDARDS", 07/11/1995.  
           (Pages=36) (Format=.txt) (Obsoletes RFC1780) (STD 1) 
           (Obsoleted by RFC1880) 

1780  S   J. Postel, "INTERNET OFFICIAL PROTOCOL STANDARDS", 03/28/1995.  
           (Pages=39) (Format=.txt) (Obsoletes RFC1720) (STD 1) 
           (Obsoleted by RFC1800) 

Hmm. Looks to me like we had to wait almost 4 months between 2000 and 2200, 11
months between 1920 and 2000, almost 4 months between 1880 and 1920, over 4
months between 1800 and 1880, and 3 and a half months between 1780 and 1800.
Try as I might, I cannot get "quarterly" to emerge from these dates.

Mind you, I'm not criticizing the RFC Editor et al. for their tardiness in
producing this document on a quarlerly schedule. On the contrary, I think the
RFC Editor is doing exactly the right thing here and that it is simply silly to
expect this data from the RFC Editor. Don't they have enough to do without
requiring them to unnecessarily generate a complex document when a much
simpler, almost entirely automated facility would meet the requirements in this
area.

> There used to be an RFC index at Internic's FTP site which was exactly
> what is being asked for: it contained up-to-date status of all RFCs.
> As a bonus, the RFC citation was in a very nice form.  I know I
> personally always used it instead of the RFC index at the ISI.  Now
> that this index is no longer being maintained, people miss it.  The
> trouble is, there is no good replacement.

And worse, the generation of a good replacement could be almost entirely
automatic. We're supposed to be engineers here, for heaven's sake, and a
database for a few thousand small text entries isn't even close to rocket
science.

				Ned