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Re: [ietf-smtp] Revision vs independent effort, was Editorial Errata Reported

2012-12-04 08:19:46


--On Tuesday, December 04, 2012 09:47 +0100 Alessandro Vesely
<vesely(_at_)tana(_dot_)it> wrote:

...
I don't see the proposed clarification text as a real
problem, but don't see it as necessary either.   If you
reject the present erratum proposal and another one is
generated against 5321, I will certainly recommend rejecting
the latter as well (or at least putting it into "hold for
document revision".

So far, the point seems to be about the best way to hang
post-it notes that might be useful for document revision.  A
better tool than the errata system would be handy, IMHO.  Did
you see the comment system that the FSF put up for GPLv3? [*]

Yep.  Maybe better suited for discussion of legal issues than of
this sort of topic, but...

However, I note that each "hold for document revision"
placeholder, especially the subset that involve earlier
design decisions, will bring us closer to the need for a WG
to revise 5321 rather than allowing that to be an independent
effort).

Does that mean independent of the pressure exercised by the
weigh of the post-it sediment?

To some extent, yes.  To be a little more clear, there are two
procedural possibilities for a 5321 (and presumably 5322)
update, almost independent of the many factors that enter into
when it happens.  One is that such an update is substantially
just a textual update, clarifying whatever needs to be
clarified, rearranging text if necessary to improve readability,
dealing with issues about which there is no substantial
disagreement, and coping with whatever whims the then-IESG
chooses to impose.*  In that case, the revisions could be
handled as either individual submissions or via the AppsAWG.
The other is that design decisions need to be reviewed and
revisited --possibly ones that would require reversion to
Proposed but even less important ones.  In the latter case, I
believe a WG will be necessary, with the recent Webfinger
overload on the AppsAWG list being only one symptom of the
problem.  Speaking personally and not as editor, I would have a
lot of trouble trying to convince others (or even myself) that,
with limited resources in the IETF, there is a sufficiently
pressing need for an SMTP update to require the costs of
creating and managing a WG.  YMMD.

best,
    john

* For those who don't know, 5321 itself nearly died because of
insistence by an IESG member or two on "editorial" changes that
would have effectively required a complete revision, including a
complete revision and reorganization of the ABNF.    We finally
got the document through by postponing those demands until "next
time", but I'm assuming that, if we were to try to do a revision
now, they would come back up again.   Having to face that
"opportunity" doesn't increase motivation to do a revision very
much.


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