--On Tuesday, October 04, 2011 11:03 -0500 Dean Willis
<dean(_dot_)willis(_at_)softarmor(_dot_)com> wrote:
...
Automatic expiry, as you propose, is easy. But given the fact
that long-lived PS have essentially become "standards", I'd
like to make a counter-proposal -- semi-automatic advancement.
We set a 3-year life-cycle for Proposed Standard, Draft
Standard, and Standard. On the 3rd anniversary of any state,
the RFC Editor polls the IESG (which might seek community
input). If anybody is actually developing from the document,
the document, it advances to the next standards-level or
remains a "full standard", and the RFC Editor edits in any
posted errata and republishes (whether as a new RFC no. or a
"version" of the original RFC number is open). If nobody is
using it, it goes to "historic". Such a poll should be pretty
easy; one post to the IETF list, and a 2-min discussion on the
telechat.
While this is an interesting variation, the general idea of
semi-automatic promotion is not exactly new. See, e.g.,
http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-newtrk-promotion from 2006.
It may not surprise you to know that the idea is more
controversial than might first appear. One reason appears
below...
When I say "developing from" the document, I don't mean "using
the protocol specified by the document in a static
deployment", but "referencing the document in new deployments,
or actively trying to revise the protocol therein".
I'm guessing FTP would probably qualify as one of the things
that would move from "standard" to "historic".
That would come as an interesting surprise to the ftpext2 WG and
several of the developers who are active there. That WG, while
not as active as some of us would like, is definitely alive and
kicking under a fairly recent charter.
I suggest that the fact that you (and presumably lots of the
community) didn't know that such a WG existed and was doing
work, and hence that FTP is being "developed from" is
symptomatic of part of the problem with your proposal (and even
the earlier one). Accidentally deprecating which was being
actively deployed and developed because not enough of the right
had the patience to read announcements on the IETF (or
IETF-Announce) lists would be a really unfortunate development.
john
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