[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
- they might not even read the new RFC as it seems
   uninteresting from its title.

We could use the RFC eratum 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

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