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RE: Last Call: Tags for the Identification of Languages to BCP

2000-10-21 01:50:02
At 15.44 -0700 00-10-20, Kurt D. Zeilenga wrote:
At 03:12 PM 10/20/00 -0700, Dan Kohn wrote:
This is the normal way standards progress through maturity, as otherwise
issuing any new RFC would require dozens or hundreds of other RFCs to be
simultaneously reissued.

It would be normal if the RFC 1766 was being replaced by a
standard track document.  However, the proposal is to replace
RFC 1766 with a BCP.  This implies that RFC 1766 and all standard
track documents with normative references to RFC 1766 will be
moved to Historic status.

No, it is perfectly ok for a document on standards track to reference a BCP, and therefore a document which is Proposed to be replaced by a BCP. The thing that can not happen is having a standards track document having normative references to a different document on a lower level on standards track, or to informational, experimental or historic.

From RFC 2026:

   An AS may not have a higher maturity level in the standards track
   than any standards-track TS on which the AS relies (see section 4.1).
   For example, a TS at Draft Standard level may be referenced by an AS
   at the Proposed Standard or Draft Standard level, but not by an AS at
   the Standard level.

   Specifications that are not on the standards track are labeled with
   one of three "off-track" maturity levels:  "Experimental",
   "Informational", or "Historic".  The documents bearing these labels
   are not Internet Standards in any sense.


   Patrik Fältström
   Area Director, Applications Area