On Thu, 16 Mar 2006 18:43:35 -0500, RJ Atkinson
<rja(_at_)extremenetworks(_dot_)com> said:
Ran> It is a bug that the scope of the RFC Editor, which for decades
Ran> has been the broader Internet community, has above been limited
Ran> to just "the IETF community". For openers, the IRTF and IAB
Ran> are not properly part of the IETF, though they are obviously
Ran> related and co-operative. More broadly though, the RFC Editor
Ran> has handled Internet documents that had nothing to do with the
Ran> IETF for many years now. It would be a mistake to narrow the
Ran> RFC Editor's scope as the above sentence appears to do.
Right on!
Ran> Proposed edit:
Ran> s/of the IETF community/of the Internet community/
Absolutely.
Ran> Similarly, it is a bug that the IETF process would govern the
Ran> publication of non-IETF documents. The IETF process properly
Ran> should govern how IETF generated documents should be handled
Ran> for publication. However, the IETF processes ought not govern
Ran> how IRTF, IAB, or other non-IETF documents are handled by the
Ran> RFC Editor.
Exactly.
The RFC Editor's independence needs to be
strengthened. Not weakened.
The IETF is just one customer of the RFC
Publication Service.
RFC publication and the RFC Editor predate
IETF/IESG/...
Since establishment of the IETF, the main
innovation in the Internet; the Web; was through a
non-ietf RFC publication. It is a good thing that
W3C has been using the RFC Publication Service.
IETF should not be permitted to interfere with
other uses of the RFC Publication Service.
Allowing IETF/IESG/... to control the RFC
Publication Service will be to the detriment of
the broader Internet community.
It should be expected of the RFC Editor to publish
non-IETF RFCs despite objections from IETF/IESG.
How often has this happened? I managed to do it,
but it was very difficult. What is being proposed
will make things worse.
Shortly after this note, I will send two messages
dating back to 1998-2000.
One is with regard to a complaint against the RFC
Editor for lacking a back bone and the IESG for
being irresponsible in the case of RFC-2188. My
recommendations for a remedy there are consistent
with Ran's observations. I had to drive that
complaint to be able to publish RFC-2524 despite
IESG's objections. See:
http://www.emsd.org/communicationRecord/rfc2524Publication/maillist.html
for details. Has there been other cases where the
RFC Editor chose to publish a RFC despite of
IESG's don't publish recommendation?
The second is the Policies and Procedures of the
Free Protocols Foundation
http://www.freeprotocols.org
which propose a model for independent entities
creating an environment for a market oriented
protocol development process.
IETF's culthood will be further strengthened, if
the RFC Editor's independence was to be further
weakened.
...Mohsen
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