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Re: As Promised, an attempt at 2026bis

2006-09-28 12:39:52
On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Eliot Lear wrote:
Please find in draft-lear-ietf-rfc2026bis-00.txt a preliminary revision
of, well, RFC 2026.  It contains the following changes:

   1. A new two step process for standardization where the second step
      is optional.  In other words, you get an STD # at the first step. 
      This is a bit of compromise position.  The idea is to reflect
      reality of the existing ONE STEP process but allow that some might
      wish to indicate that a standard is indeed more mature.
   2. A suggested mapping from PS/DS/IS is included.
   3. A request is made for appropriate relabelling.
   4. There is no mandatory timeline for the IESG to reconsider
      standards on that first step, but they may do so in a manner of
      their choosing after the two year mark.

I could get behind this proposal.  However, for me the key parts 
are that you get a STD number upon entry to the standards track
and that advancement is encouraged but optional.  Indeed, I would be
just as happy with a proposal that did this but retained PS/DS/IS,
since that would be sufficient to bring the process document into
alignment with current practice.

On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, Ned Freed wrote:
[John Klensin wrote:]
While I agree with that, I suggest that we are in something of a
conundrum.  Right now, 2026 is badly out of date in a number of
areas.  It reflects procedures and modes that we no longer
follow, only a fraction of which are addressed by Eliot's draft.
There is general community understanding and acceptance that we
are operating, not by the letter of 2026, but by the combination
of 2026 and a certain amount of, largely undocumented, oral
tradition (I expect to hear from the usual suspects on that
assertion, but it is the way it is).  To make things worse, we
have some BCPs that effectively amend 2026  but that are not
referenced in Eliot's draft -- I've pointed out some of them to
him, which I assume will be fixed, but may have missed others.

If that's indeed the case, the first order of business needs to
be to document current practice. I see no chance of making
forward progress on actual changes without first having a
consensus as to what our current state is.

Brian Carpenter has written draft-carpenter-rfc2026-critique-02.txt
which does exactly that, and he has repeatedly solicited comments on
it.  If you think that it would be helpful to have it published as
an informational RFC before undertaking to make normative changes
to our standards procedures, please say so.

On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, John C Klensin wrote:
The "current practice" version of the three-step standards
process would be, IMO, to leave the three steps there (we
clearly have them and use them, even if not often) but either
remove the periodic review and timeout provisions or replace
them with some words that indicate that regular review and
advancement/demotion still reflect community desire but that, in
practice, we never do it.  Speaking personally, I could live
with either of those as a description of current status, even
though they seem contradictory, so I see some hope of getting
agreement on some very careful wording.

As I noted above, I would be OK with an update to 2026 that did
just that and nothing else.  It would be a big improvement on
the current situation.

Mike


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