Re: Errata #5933 for RFC8200

[Suresh Krishnan <[e-mail]>]

Hi Fernando,

> On Feb 27, 2020, at 3:07 PM, Fernando Gont <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Suresh,
> 
> Two months ago I filled an errata on RFC8200 regarding the processing of IPv6 extension headers. The errata is available here: https://www.rfc-editor.org/errata/eid5933
> 
> While I believe that folks with a knowledge of Internet Protocols would be able to interpret what is in RFC8200, given recent discussions on the topic, and upon a re-read of the text, I believe a clarification is warranted, such that we allow all sorts of curious interpretations of the text.

I think this would be fine to clarify, but IMHO the errata process is not the right way to do it. 

Based on the IESG Statement about processing of RFC Errata for the IETF Stream (https://ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/statements/processing-rfc-errata/ <https://ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/statements/processing-rfc-errata/>)

"Changes that modify the working of a protocol to something that might be different from the intended consensus when the document was approved should be either Hold for Document Update or Rejected. Deciding between these two depends on judgment. Changes that are clearly modifications to the intended consensus, or involve large textual changes, should be Rejected."

As you said above, some people might interpret the text in RFC8200 to mean the replacement text you provided in the errata but others might read the text exactly as written ("until the packet reaches the node identified in the Destination Address field of the IPv6 header”). Given that the text in RFC8200 had consensus (and I don’t think you said otherwise) and it is impossible to tell after the fact if the proposed replacement text would have achieved consensus, I think this erratum falls under the above category. 

> 
> I send a heads-up on the 6man mailing list (https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ipv6/6MPs25WvSMD6vVT0ekaMYjAwM6c/), and the proposed text received the review of at least Brian Carpenter, Ron Bonica, and Mark Smith. Their reviews are available on such thread.
> 
> In the light that some folks seem to be pretending to leverage "the lack of clarify" in RFC8200 (an Internet Standard) to violate it, I'd appreciate that the reported errata be processed.
> 
> Processing the aforementioned errata is key to many of the discussions this and other WGs are having.

I will process this and move it to the “Hold for Document Update” state with the following note

“The change proposed by this erratum has to be evaluated for correctness and consensus if and when there is an update of RFC8200."

Thanks
Suresh