Re: [Rfced-future] Historical Properties

[Eric Rescorla <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 7:47 AM Joel M. Halpern <[e-mail]> wrote:

> It seems to me that some version of stable document references /
> unmodifiabl / archival belongs in that list.


I think this gets at the intersection between the descriptive ("this is how
things are historically")
and the normative ("extra consensus is required to change") angles.

For example, I doubt it's any surprise to people here that I think it would
be better if we made
RFCs #s correspond to semantically identical rather than bitwise objects
(e.g., RFC 10001
would point to a document that incorporated errata, etc. and that you could
use something
like RFC 10001.0 to refer to the originally published version, RFC10001.1
to refer
to the first tranche of errata, etc.). I agree that:

1. This is not how the RFC series has traditionally been managed.
2. Many people do not agree with me and we do not currently have even rough
consensus to make this change.

However, I don't agree that we should have a heightened process for making
this change
than other changes (indeed, isn't part of the point of the RSWG to be able
to consider
this kind of thing?). For that reason, while it might be OK to either (1)
have some historical
text with nothing about a heightened standard of approval (2) have a
heightened standard
of approval only for principles that we all agree should be, we should not
have a heightened
standard of approval for the very principles which are contested.

-Ekr

(Archival is in the
> introduction.  Repeating here seems sensible to me.)
>
> Yours,
> Joel
>
> On 11/23/2021 10:43 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> > At the risk of finding a lot of messages in my inbox tomorrow,
> > here's a proposed shorter alternative to Mike's "RFC Principles".
> > Obviously a different slant, and I'm sure Peter will spot
> > some overlaps with existing text:
> >
> > # Historical Properties of the RFC Editor Series
> >
> > The following describes some historical properties of
> > the RFC Series. Proposals to modify any of these properties
> > should not be taken forward without a strong community consensus
> > including not only active RSWG/RSAB members but also the user
> > community of each RFC stream.
> >
> > ## Availability
> >
> > The RFC series documents have been freely available digitally for more
> > than 35 years, with no fee for access. The IETF Trust [legal provisions]
> > (https://trustee.ietf.org/documents/trust-legal-provisions/) apply.
> >
> > ## Accessibility
> >
> > There is a general goal to make the RFC series documents as accessible
> > as possible to communities that have special needs, e.g., for those
> > with impaired sight.
> >
> > ## Publication Language
> >
> > The publication language of the series is English. Although
> > translations of RFCs into other languages are welcomed, the
> > English version is normative.
> >
> > ## Diversity of Interests
> >
> > In addition to Internet standards, the RFC series has published
> > procedural and informational documents, thought experiments, speculative
> > ideas, research papers, histories, humor [RFC1149, RFC2549], and even
> > eulogies [RFC2468].  Various communities have contributed to the rich
> > history
> > of the RFC series, and to its somewhat human-centric take on networking.
> > This why several streams of RFCs exist in addition to the IETF stream,
> > and why the RFC "brand" is wider than the IETF. This is also why the
> > series does not have a "house style" and allows for individual
> expression.
> >
> > ## Document Quality
> >
> > Nevertheless, since RFCs need to be archived indefinitely and must
> > be of use to a widespread international community, quality, readability
> > and accuracy are key to the success of the RFC Series. It is
> > understood that sometimes this stands in the way of rapid publication.
> >
> >     Brian C
> >
>
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