[Rswg] Making progress on evolving the XML format

[Eric Rescorla <[e-mail]>]

Hi RSWG members,

Pete and I have been chatting about the best way forward for evolving
the XMLv3 grammar. We think that there's broad agreement that:

1. We need some document that describes the "as-is" xmlv3 format.
   - That document should be published in some form that implies
     it doesn't have consensus.
   - The WG should do the work of making sure that happens
2. We need to work on a new format (v3.1?) that will have consensus.

I think people are assuming that the new format will need an RFC but
there is not agreement on whether the "as-is" should be.


Pete and I would like to propose the following way forward, based
on a suggestion from Martin Thomson in January.

- Adopt draft-irse-draft-irse-xml2rfcv3-implemented as a WG document
  to use as the basis for v3.1.

- Everything that doesn't match RFC 7990 will be marked as
  "provisional". We go through all of these and either adopt them as
  having consensus or decline to make the change, in which case we
  move them to an Appendix.

- If necessary, we can also update the I-D to make consensus changes
  to the as-is version on an "emergency" basis, though hopefully
  this will not be needed often.

At the end of this process, we will have a document which describes
the consensus format and also an appendix which describes how "as
implemented" differs from the consensus format. These can be published
together as an RFC, which will provide archival forms of both but
without requiring that we publish an RFC of the current document while
the consensus version is still in flux. In the meantime, the ID
can serve as the definition of the current format.

What do people think of this proposal?
-Ekr