On Aug 31, 2011, at 11:36 AM, John C Klensin wrote:
We ought to, IMO, be permitting
publication of PS documents at the second level as long as
there are no _obvious_ ambiguities that cannot be figured out
(the same way) by people of good will acting in good faith
and with help from WG lists and as long as there are no other
"known [technical] defects".
That would be fine with me if we could somehow effectively
discourage deployment of proposed standards in products. But
that's a lost cause, IMO.
Keith,
IMO, there are two possibilities here. At this point, sadly,
both involve a chicken-and-egg problem. Such is life.
(1) We proceed as if Proposed Standards are what 2026 (and the
earlier culture) claims they are and work on ways to reinforce
that notion in the community. [...]
(2) We accept, and effectively encourage, deployment of proposed
standards in products, either because it is a lost cause or
because we think it is a good idea. [...]
Agree with your description of the two possibilities, but I think the decision
of possibility 2 has long since been forced on us by market expectation and
habit.
We could fix it, perhaps, by drastically changing how we label our products
(dropping the whole notion of "Proposed Standard", refusing to publish your
category 2 documents as RFCs, etc.). But we can't significantly change market
perception of what "RFC" and "Proposed Standard" mean.
(which, BTW, is why I think that moving to a two-step process, while probably
Mostly Harmless, won't do a bit of good in the overall scheme of things)
Remember that, while ignoring procedures and category
definitions that we don't follow is not desirable, "fixing" them
to reflect a model that doesn't (and won't) exist either is a
public demonstration that we are disconnected from reality. I'd
much rather leave that distinction to some other SDOs than join
them. YMMD.
And my assertion is that the model inherent in your possibility #1 above
doesn't exist and won't exist absent from drastic change. Insisting on high
quality for proposed standards is recognizing current market reality.
And I'm not one of those people who believes that market perceptions are
inherently unchangeable. But expecting the market to change how it interprets
our documents without us bothering to significantly change how we present them
to the public - THAT would indeed be a serious disconnect from reality.
Keith
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