Re: [Json] Response to Statement from Ecma International TC39

[Tim Bray <[e-mail]>]

I’m OK with most of this it goes a bit off the rails in the last paragraph.
 I think the ECMA process is better described as “opaque” than “closed”,
and the last paragraph gets into speculative territory.  While the
not-necessarily-immutable nature of 404 is a good reason to avoid a
normative reference, we don’t need to speculate on what we might do in a
future alternative universe.

I think that the most important reason to skip a normative reference to 404
is that a normative reference implies that you have to read that to
understand this, which clearly simply is not true.

There are also obvious content concerns with 404, in particular its sloppy
editing and its assertion that strings are composed of Unicode code points
which, while probably an improvement, takes us outside our charter which as
I understand it doesn’t allow us to say that documents which formerly were
JSON aren’t any more.


On Wed, Dec 4, 2013 at 6:57 PM, Matt Miller (mamille2)
<[e-mail]>wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> The JSON Working Group has received a statement from Ecma International's
> Technical Committee 39 (TC39) regarding draft-ietf-json-rfc4627bis.  The
> statement can be found at <
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/documents/LIAISON/liaison-2013-11-25-ecma-tc39-json-ecma-tc39-comment-for-rfc-4727bis-attachment-1.pdf>.
>
> In response, the Chairs and sponsoring Area Director propose to send the
> following on behalf of the JSON Working Group.  We wish to send the
> response on December 10.  If there are any serious factual errors in the
> following response, let us know before then.  Note that we are *not* asking
> the WG to re-open any of the consensus discussions, simply to see if we
> misstated anything factual.
>
>
> Thank you,
>
> -- Paul Hoffman and Matt Miller
>
> -----BEGIN RESPONSE-----
> Thank you for your statement of concern about draft-ietf-json-rfc4627bis.
> The chairs of the IETF's JSON Working Group were not aware of any serious
> concerns that TC39 had with the update process. Over the past many months,
> we repeatedly contacted ECMA and TC39 members about the JSON WG and
> draft-ietf-json-rfc4627bis, but never received any significant reply. We
> know that some TC39 members joined the JSON WG mailing list but did not
> voice any process concerns in the WG -- or privately to the WG Chairs --
> before or during either of the Last Calls on the document.
>
> In the future, it would probably be useful for Ecma and the IETF to have a
> formal liaison relationship. We have heard that there were preliminary
> discussions several months ago, but stopped short of a formal relationship
> before the JSON Working Group was formed. Formalizing the liaison
> relationship will help both SDOs communicate with each other and thus avoid
> late surprises.
>
> As to your specific requests:
>
> - In IETF Last Call, there was consensus to change the definition of "JSON
> text" in draft-ietf-json-rfc4627bis to match the one in ECMA-404. The
> latest draft reflects that change. At this point, we believe that there are
> no syntactic differences between the two specifications.
>
> - The JSON WG decided to change the title of the document to better
> reflect its content. The current document is much more than a media type
> registration: it repeats the JSON syntax originally documented in RFC 4627,
> and has been stable for many years, it is a discussion of the JSON
> semantics important to freestanding encoders and parsers, it is a
> discussion of interoperability issues that have been encountered since RFC
> 4627 and ECMA-262 5th Edition were published, and it is a media type
> registration. Having a more accurate title on the document will help
> readers understand its contents and the difference between it and ECMA-404.
>
> - After Ecma published ECMA-404, the JSON WG discussed whether to remove
> the ABNF version of the JSON syntax that was established in RFC 4627 from
> draft-ietf-json-rfc4627bis; it was decided not to do so. One reason is that
> ECMA-404 uses "racetrack pictures" to define the syntax, whereas IETF
> documents have traditionally used ABNF, and many developers have expressed
> a strong preference for the ABNF. This might be considered simply a matter
> of style, but it was deemed important by many WG members. We intend to keep
> the discussion and reference to ECMA-404 in draft-ietf-json-rfc4627bis,
> even if Ecma continues to choose not to reciprocate in ECMA-262 6th
> Edition, because developers reading draft-ietf-json-rfc4627bis might indeed
> prefer the racetrack pictures.
>
> - A normative reference to ECMA-404 would be premature without a clear and
> well-understood document management process. Historically, when someone
> reading an RFC sees a normative reference to one version of another SDO's
> standards, they tend to think the reference will apply to future versions
> of that external standard as well. Given the closed process that resulted
> in ECMA-404, it seems quite possible that Ecma could later make changes to
> ECMA-404 that would have a negative effect on interoperability from the
> Internet perspective. When the IETF normatively refers to other standards,
> it almost exclusively does so to standards that were developed with
> processes that are open to discussion and contribution by anyone.
>
> If the IETF believed that future development of ECMA-404 would involve a
> similar kind of open participation as seen with the development of
> draft-ietf-json-rfc4627bis, it could certainly revisit the topic of a
> normative reference in any subsequent update. Such a belief could be one of
> the positive products of a formal liaison relationship between the IETF and
> Ecma.
> -----END RESPONSE-----
>
>
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