Hi Thomas,
On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Thomas Narten wrote:
In practice, "IETF Consensus" (as defined in 2434) means that
procedurally the IESG has to sign off on a document before IANA
assigns code points for it.
RFC 2434 has (among others) these two definitions:
IESG Approval - New assignments must be approved by the IESG, but
there is no requirement that the request be documented in an
RFC (...)
IETF Consensus - New values are assigned through the IETF
consensus process. Specifically, new assignments are made via
RFCs approved by the IESG. (...)
I understand the first: it's completely within the IESG, and no RFC is
required.
For the latter, clearly IESG approval and an RFC are necessary. And
your note above seems to indicate that these are sufficient. In that
case, what does the phrase "through the IETF consensus process" mean?
And, if your note is correct, why was an IETF-wide Last Call issued?
Finally, why, when there was an active debate with no consensus (IMHO),
was the document summarily approved?
If the IESG saw rough consensus in the debate, that would be useful
information. If on the other hand the IESG issued the Last Call as a
formality, that would be useful to know as well.
I think the wording in 2434 is quite clear. When someone says "IETF
Consensus, as defined in [RFC 2434]" (which is the type of language I
like to see in documents because it is VERY clear), IANA doesn't
assign code points until the document is approved for publication as
an RFC.
Perhaps "IETF Consensus" being defined to mean "an RFC with IESG
approval" is clear to you. For my part, I see neither 'IETF' nor
'consensus' in "an RFC with IESG approval". If the category were
called "IESG Approval documented in an RFC", I wouldn't be having
this discussion.
Kireeti.