On Sun, 28 Mar 2004, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2004 13:38:13 +0200
From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <iljitsch(_at_)muada(_dot_)com>
Cc: IETF Discussion <ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
...
To me it seems that the IETF can't make up its mind: are RFCs just
drafts that don't expire, or are they hugely important documents that
must be absolutely perfect before they are published?
Why does it have to be one of your two alternatives?
RFC's are like books. No book is perfect. Almost all books undergo
significant review, copy editing, etc,, before publication.
The problem is version control. We're engineers. That means we are,
more so than mere mortals, doomed never to get anything right the first
time out. However, the RFC publishing model doesn't really allow for
incremental changes: you have to write a completely new RFC, which then
gets a new number that has no relation to the original RFC.
While it is normally the case that an RFC is "revised" by the
publication of a new RFC which obsoletes the old, this is not
necessarily the only way to do it. If there are a significant volume of
changes but still only a small amount compated to the size of the
original RFC, it is possible to publish and updating RFC, at least for
Informational RFCs. See RFC 2801 and 3504. There is also an errata
mechanism maintained by the RFC Editor.
What we need is a way to add information to RFCs whithout the need to
rewrite the original RFC or make the new information a full-blown RFC
of its own.
There is clearly no way to do what you want with printed books, which
are what RFCs are modelled after. To get the effect you want, people
would need to go to a web resource or the like. But if they are willing
to do that, then they can almost as eaily find out about errata and
whether the RFC they are looking for has been obsoleted.
I also notice that you ignore all the problems of fluid specifications
that constantly change on line so that no two people/implementers can be
sure they are working from the same spec unless they agreed on a time
stamp, etc.
Thanks,
Donald
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Donald E. Eastlake 3rd
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