On 5/26/09 at 10:42 PM +0100, Alexey Melnikov wrote:
'Internet Mail Architecture' <draft-crocker-email-arch> as a
Proposed Standard
Please indicate your preference for publishing the document as:
1. Proposed Standard, as queried in the two Last Call notices
I believe it should be Proposed Standard.
Also please indicate your reason(s) for this choice.
Restating something I sent to the IESG separately earlier:
This is an architecture document. We don't do these much anymore in
the IETF, and this one is particularly strange because it is
describing an architecture for a deployed service. However, I don't
think that means we should shy away from it. We in the email
community have needed this document for a *very* long time. We end up
re-discussing architectural issues in each new WG just to get our
terms straight and constrain solution spaces (cf. LEMONADE, MARID,
DKIM). And we need to have a document to point to so that newcomers
can couch their proposals in terms we understand without having to
re-argue the model every time. But in order for it to work in these
roles, and for it to have the ability to evolve over time, it really
needs to be a standards track document.
Yes, there will inevitably be differences between the overall
architecture of the system and the protocols that instantiate it.
There are simply pragmatics which make such compromise required, and
it is in fact a healthy tension. And yes, that fact means that some
people will do stupid things, like claiming that where the
architecture and protocols diverge, the architecture must win. There
will always be such folks who don't understand that sometimes
pragmatics prevail over architectural purity. But I think to not call
this document what it is (i.e., an evolving community consensus on
the email architecture) in fear of how it might be used is frankly a
bit nuts. Let's address the problems as they arise rather than
further diminishing the meaning of our document series.
pr
--
Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102
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