Re: [Rfced-future] New Version Notification for draft-iab-rfcefdp-rfced-model-03.txt

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

I've read the thread but my comment is only on Colin's original post:

On 23-Sep-21 07:48, Colin Perkins wrote:
>> On 22 Sep 2021, at 20:44, Peter Saint-Andre <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> On 9/22/21 1:31 PM, Colin Perkins wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> A nit, perhaps, that’s been present since the -02 version but 
that I forgot to mention.
>>>
>>> Section 6 says: "Documents pubished in the Editorial Stream shall have a status of Informational.  The Editorial Stream is not authorized to publish RFCs that are Standards Track or Best Current Practice, since such 
RFCs are reserved to the IETF Stream [RFC8729].” This does not mention Experimental RFCs. Should it? We’ve had "process experiments" in the past… 
>>
>> The concern was that the Editorial Stream not publish RFCs that could be
>> construed as standards. One could imagine that we *might* want to do
>> experiments in the Editorial Stream, but some squinting is involved.
>> Thus personally I'd be fine with mentioning Experimental as well
>> (although, again, that was not the concern).
> 
> 
> Sure – I understand the concern.
> 
> I’d lean towards cannot publish Experimental RFCs on the Editorial Stream, as process experiments seem to be stretching the definition of experimental, but don’t have a strong opinion. I do think we should make a decision though.

We only have one RFC Series, so I don't think the idea of an experiment makes any sense. Suppose somebody proposed an experimental category of RFC's called "Whizzbang" and we published an Experimental RFC describing the 
Whizzbang category. Any Whizzbangs that we published would become permanently archived RFCs with their own DOIs and until the end of civilisation, 
they'd be there, clearly labelled "Whizzbang". If we terminated the "experiment" after 2 years, and even if we concluded that the Whizzbangs should have been called Damp Squibs, they would be Whizzbangs for ever.

So, experiments on an archival series really aren't reversible. Consider that we have 30+ RFCs in the "FYI" category. (See RFC1150 and RFC6360.)

Therefore, I think there is no value in labelling an editorial stream RFC 
"Experimental". Whatever it does has permanent effects.

(This is a very different case from RFC8989, which is an experimental process document, with time-limited effects.)

   Brian