Re: [newtrk] IESG comments on ISD proposal

["Spencer Dawkins" <[e-mail]>]

Hi, Sam,


> Folks, no matter what happens to ISDs, I don't see that ISD 
> references
> would replace RFC references in other RFCs for the most part.
>
> It is very common for one RFC to refer to section foo.bar of another
> RFC.  You cannot do that with an ISD reference.  You might be able 
> to
> refer to an ISD if you are saying something really basic like
> "implement SCTP," but not if you refer to any details.

Perhaps I misunderstood, but I was keying off the following text in 
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-newtrk-repurposing-isd-03.txt, 
which I interpreted as saying that ISD references could actually be as 
precise as RFC references.

Perhaps you are correct - that people will continue to (try to) refer 
to RFCs as they do today, no matter what Newtrk produces. This 
practice has been problematic for me (and is becoming more problematic 
as time goes on), but the world does not always do what I wish it did. 
So you may be correct.

Spencer

9.1  References to ISDs or References to RFCs

   Before this proposal was generated, vendors who wished to specify
   what they support, and potential customers who wished to specify 
what
   they wanted to purchase, had a choice between referencing specific
   RFCs (to get precision) or, for full standards, a specific STD 
number
   (to get "the most current version").  Except for providing an "ISD"
   mechanism for referencing documents other than full Internet
   Standards, this proposal does not change either of those options:
   both are still free to use the existing forms.  In the rare case in
   which a vendor is deliberately attempting to confuse its potential
   customers, this mechanism is not likely to help very much either. 
It
   does, however, provide a third option, which is to specify the 
state
   of an ISD (and hence a Standard) as of a particular date (even a 
date
   in the past or future) or within a particular date range.  So,
   whatever the referencing issues are today, this certainly does not
   make them worse and almost certainly makes them better.

   It should also be noted that other Standardization bodies have had
   difficulties when referencing RFCs.  It is not always clear whether
   an RFC or an STD should be referenced.  When a reference is made,
   there can be problems when the RFC that is referenced becomes 
updated
   or obsoleted.


.
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