Hi everyone,
I'd like to support the notion that standards levels for RFCs simply do not
matter. In my own domain (IPsec), we try to spend time on keeping the protocol
viable (by adding useful stuff and trying to avoid cruft) rather than working
on mostly pointless PS->DS->FS projects. Whether we're doing a good job is for
others to judge...
On the other hand, I think we're not doing well on the other side of the
spectrum, Internet Drafts. The industry and even other SDOs (3GPP is a case in
point) are too happy to implement expired drafts, which as we know may be lower
quality, less secure, and/or non-interoperable. In fact in recent years we have
made it even easier to access and use long expired drafts, and this is hurting
us. I'd like to make two related proposals to deal with this issue:
- Make the "tools" URL for an I-D into the mainstream way to access
I-Ds. Specifically, include this URL in the I-D announcement mail. This would
have the benefit of pointing people to related RFCs and to relevant IPR
statements.
- Only non-expired drafts should be directly accessible from the tools
area, or in fact have a stable IETF URL. Expired drafts will still be kept
around, but will require a (freely available) "tools" login. So non-IETFers
will have to spend 5 minutes' effort to reach them.
This would go a long way towards having I-Ds as temporary documents, like they
used to be, while still letting us work with the old documents when necessary.
Thanks,
Yaron
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