Re: [mpls] Discuss of EXP field

Adrian (and all),
A brief comment (supporting your view) inline below...

Regards,
        Sasha

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mpls-bounces@ietf.org [mailto:mpls-bounces@ietf.org] On
> Behalf Of Adrian Farrel
> Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 1:14 PM
> To: mpls@ietf.org
> Subject: [mpls] Discuss of EXP field
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm finally tempted out of my cave to join in this cycle-burning
> extravaganza.
>
> I just want to point out that marking a new RFC as "Updates"
> a whole series
> of other RFCs has only limited effect on how those other RFCs
> are read.
>
> Thus, *if* the reader collects the older RFC from the RFC repository
> (http://www.ietf.org/iesg/1rfc_index.txt) or from the MPLS
> charter page
> (http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/mpls-charter.html) they
> will see a note
> saying something like "updated by RFC wxyz". The wise reader
> will get a copy
> of that newer RFC to find out what the update is.
>
> But most RFC reading comes direct. I need to know about LDP;
> I get RFC 5036
> and read it. And the RFC itself carries no indication that it has been
> updated.
>
> The effect of this in our particular case is that changing
> the name of a
> field in a new RFC will have only limited affect on how
> people perceive the
> name of that field.
> - they will continue to read the old RFCs
> - they will continue to read the many books that are out there
>
[Sasha] Not to mention tons of technical documents that are freely available
as Web pages these days AND code source files that refer to the EXP field by its obsolete name...
And not to mention output of numerous network analyzers (even if this has the best chance of eventually
being updated).
>
> - they might not even read the new RFC as it seems uninteresting from its title.
>
> We could use the RFC erratum system, but frankly, hardly anyone ever looks at that.
>
> A slightly more sure way to drive the message home would be to respin all of
> the updated RFCs with the correct (new) naming of the bits.
> This is what most publishing organisations would do.
>
> Of course, we only mark the old RFCs as obsoleted in exactly the same way as
> we mark them as updated. This means that they are still around and still
> easy to pick up and read (witness the recent email on the list about RFC
> 3036).
>
> So...
>
> All this effort and what effect?
>
>
> There now. I, too, have wasted my time on this thread.
>
> Adrian
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mpls mailing list
> mpls@ietf.org
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/mpls
>
_______________________________________________
mpls mailing list
mpls@ietf.org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/mpls