g'day,
Fred Baker wrote:
At 03:51 PM 4/8/00 -0700, Karl Auerbach wrote:
If the IETF engages in routine non-acceptance of "informational" documents
on the basis of non-technical concerns the IETF will, I believe, lose its
clear and loud voice when that voice is most needed to be heard.
That's a valid concern. The trade-off of interest to me is the one between
publishing standards and publishing other documents. If you look at other
bodies, their standards are clearly identifies - they only publish
standards. We also publish other things, but do so under a nomenclature
that is readily wrestled to the appearance of support as standards.
. . .
I believe that the RFC Editor's also decides to not publish quite apart
from IESG input, and does so when documents that come their lack substance.
But their ethic tends to be that the RFC Series is the community memory, so
recording things that do have substance is good even if they are bad ideas,
because it let's someone else learn from the experiment.
Well put. As Dave has pointed out earlier this weekend, there is a burning need
for better, permanent access to the Drafts collection. If we had that, perhaps
much of this discussion might become moot, since some of the out-on-a-limb
stuff may be circulated in a less "official" form, but remain permanently and
readily accessible. I still see value in having documents come out as "Request
For Comments" in the traditional sense, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to find
ways to better distinguish between the Standards track and other documents.
- peterd
--
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Technical Leader
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Alcohol and calculus don't mix. Never drink and derive.
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