At 01:05 PM 1/30/02 -0500, Keith Moore wrote:
In general, I support the idea of a central (cross-protocol) header
field name registry, but I think it's totally unacceptable to confer
any more legitimacy on nonstandard header fields, or to define a
procedure which would effectively allow parties to bypass the
established procedures for extending protocols that use these
header fields.
I accept the concern, and I/we have tried to be sensitive to it.
There is this disclaimer:
[[[
3.2.2 Provisional header template
Registration as a Provisional Message Header does not imply any kind
of endorsement by the IETF, IANA or any other body.
]]]
Would you prefer some stronger wording?
that's fine regarding the applicability of a field that has made it
into the registry - my concern is about allowing making it too easy
to introduce new fields into the registry.
and no Provisional field be added to the registry without
either IETF consensus or IESG approval.
... but folks who have expressed an interest in the provisional registry
aspects have argued that not allowing a reasonably full coverage all
headers, good and bad, would weaken the informative purpose of the
provisional registry.
I am assuming that either IESG or a consensus process will approve
additions to the registry for the "informative" purpose of documenting
pre-existing practice. Jacob Palme's documents would make a good
starting point for this. The trick is to document existing practice
without making it too easy to stake a claim for poorly chosen headers
that don't exist yet.
That way, we can document existing uses of header fields without
creating a mechanism to "stake a claim" for new fields that are
ill-advised, poorly designed, or poorly defined.
Hmm... rather than raising the bar so high for admission, how about
allowing IESG to require removal of a provisional entry (that's already
there), OR to require that a "health warning" be added of they feel the
header to be particularly egregious?
IMHO, that's lowering the bar too much. It's much easier to get IESG
to blanket approve an occasional batch of registrations for the sake
of documenting existing practice than it is to get IESG to remove
or warn about individual fields.
Keith