Re: [L2sm] Proposed Liaison to 3GPP SA5

["Adrian Farrel" <[e-mail]>]

Hi again,

It has been a while since anyone quoted 2026 at me :-)

I think you have interpreted the text you quote the wrong way around. It is true that you cannot take an Informational RFC and make any assumption of IETF consensus. That is, it is possible to have Informational RFCs that have or do not have IETF consensus. The second paragraph describes documents that are produced under what is now called the Independent Submissions stream: they are Informational RFCs that do not (cannot) have IETF consensus.

You might find RFC 7841 helpful in understanding how IETF consensus can be applied across a range of documents: mandatory for some; optional for others.

The IESG Statement at https://www.ietf.org/blog/last-call-guidance-community/?secondary_topic=22&primary_topic=7& makes clear that the IESG considers it reasonable to IETF last call an Informational RFC. I believe that the current IESG continues the practice of issuing IETF last call and so judging IETF consensus on all RFCs on the IETF stream.

Cheers,
Adrian

> The definition of IETF informational models can be found in RFC 2026 section
> 4.2.2:
> 
> --------
> 4.2.2  Informational
> 
>    An "Informational" specification is published for the general
>    information of the Internet community, and does not represent an
>    Internet community consensus or recommendation.  The Informational
>    designation is intended to provide for the timely publication of a
>    very broad range of responsible informational documents from many
>    sources, subject only to editorial considerations and to verification
>    that there has been adequate coordination with the standards process
>    (see section 4.2.3).
> 
>    Specifications that have been prepared outside of the Internet
>    community and are not incorporated into the Internet Standards
>    Process by any of the provisions of section 10 may be published as
>    Informational RFCs, with the permission of the owner and the
>    concurrence of the RFC Editor.
> --------
> 
> That is my point, you can't call it consensus as the purpuse of an informational
> model is not to reach consensus.
> 
> Roque