Also, because it's not publicly visible, here's my PROTO writeup for
this document:
The publication of draft-melnikov-smtp-priority as a Proposed Standard
is requested by an individual contributor.
(1) What type of RFC is being requested (BCP, Proposed Standard,
Internet Standard, Informational, Experimental, or Historic)? Why
is this the proper type of RFC? Is this type of RFC indicated in the
title page header?
This document proposes a standard protocol extension to SMTP. It is
possible for the proposal to go through as Experimental, but the
shepherd and the participants in the discussion of the document
believe that Proposed Standard is correct. The strongest argument for
Experimental is probably the new mechanism of tunneling the SMTP
parameters through servers that don't support them by using reserved
message header fields (see more below).
(2) The IESG approval announcement includes a Document Announcement
Write-Up. Please provide such a Document Announcement Write-Up. Recent
examples can be found in the "Action" announcements for approved
documents. The approval announcement contains the following sections:
Technical Summary
Relevant content can frequently be found in the abstract
and/or introduction of the document. If not, this may be
an indication that there are deficiencies in the abstract
or introduction.
This defines an extension to SMTP whereby messages are sent with a
"priority", enabling the receiving Message Transfer Agent to take the
priority into account for onward processing. The goal is to process
and/or transfer higher priority messages first.
Working Group Summary
Was the document considered in any WG, and if so, why was
it not adopted as a work item there? Was there controversy
about particular points that caused the WG to not adopt the
document?
There are currently no appropriate email-related working groups. The
ADs and AppsAWG chairs considered the document for the Apps Area WG,
but decided that it would be done best as an individual submission,
and did not need the attention of the working group.
Document Quality
Are there existing implementations of the protocol? Have a
significant number of vendors indicated their plan to
implement the specification? Are there any reviewers that
merit special mention as having done a thorough review,
e.g., one that resulted in important changes or a
conclusion that the document had no substantive issues? If
there was a MIB Doctor, Media Type or other expert review,
what was its course (briefly)? In the case of a Media Type
review, on what date was the request posted?
There is at least one prototype implementation, and plans for at least
one other after publication. This is largely being done for a
particular use case, and the proponents are aware of some of the
tradeoffs they've made. The shepherd has some concern about the
broader applicability of this as a standard, given those trade-offs.
That said, some of them had to be made, and there is value in
implementing features from proprietary email systems in standardized
ways on the open Internet. The shepherd supports that general effort.
Personnel
Who is the Document Shepherd? Who is the Responsible Area
Director?
Barry Leiba is the document shepherd; Pete Resnick is the Responsible AD.
(3) Briefly describe the review of this document that was performed by
the Document Shepherd. If this version of the document is not ready
for publication, please explain why the document is being forwarded to
the IESG.
I have reviewed several versions of the document as it has progressed
through the stages of discussion and modification, and I think this
version is ready to go forward. I would like IETF community input on
some of the trade-offs, particularly those created by the parameter
tunneling and those involving the trust model (see below).
(4) Does the document Shepherd have any concerns about the depth or
breadth of the reviews that have been performed?
The document has had sufficient review from the email community, on
the ietf-smtp list and through individual reviews. I have no concerns
about the level of review.
(5) Do portions of the document need review from a particular or from
broader perspective, e.g., security, operational complexity, AAA, DNS,
DHCP, XML, or internationalization? If so, describe the review that
took place.
I would like to see SecDir and OpsDir reviews during the last-call process.
(6) Describe any specific concerns or issues that the Document Shepherd
has with this document that the Responsible Area Director and/or the
IESG should be aware of? For example, perhaps he or she is uncomfortable
with certain parts of the document, or has concerns whether there really
is a need for it. In any event, if the interested community has
discussed those issues and has indicated that it still wishes to advance
the document, detail those concerns here.
The most significant item that needs to be called out is the issue of
tunneling the PRIORITY value through non-conforming MTAs by turning it
into a message header field (MT-Priority) and then back again. This
is a problematic technique, but is an important capability for those
who need and intend to implement this extension. It creates a trust
issue, wherein a message containing MT-Priority can be originated with
a Message Submission Agent that does not know about this extension,
and when the message hits a Message Transfer Agent that does support
this, the header field will be turned back into a valid PRIORITY
value, on the unwarranted assumption that it was authorized.
Intermediate MTAs have no way to distinguish this situation from one
where the field was tunneled legitimately.
The counter-argument is that the use case for this specification
involves out-of-band trust relationships, and that such situations
will be known and dealt with. I believe that limits the usability of
those features on the open Internet, with other use cases.
(7) Has each author confirmed that any and all appropriate IPR
disclosures required for full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78
and BCP 79 have already been filed. If not, explain why.
Yes.
(8) Has an IPR disclosure been filed that references this document?
If so, summarize any discussion and conclusion regarding the IPR
disclosures.
No, and there are no known IPR issues with this document.
(9) How solid is the consensus of the interested community behind this
document? Does it represent the strong concurrence of a few individuals,
with others being silent, or does the interested community as a whole
understand and agree with it?
The consensus for this is solid, but relatively small. A number of
participants/reviewers have expressed interest in the concept, though
it's not clear how much implementation is planned.
(10) Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme
discontent? If so, please summarise the areas of conflict in separate
email messages to the Responsible Area Director. (It should be in a
separate email because this questionnaire is publicly available.)
No.
(11) Identify any ID nits the Document Shepherd has found in this
document. (See http://www.ietf.org/tools/idnits/ and the Internet-Drafts
Checklist). Boilerplate checks are not enough; this check needs to be
thorough.
The document refers to iana.org URLs at the shepherd's request, to
make it clear which registries are being referenced. These URLs will
be removed before RFC publication.
(12) Describe how the document meets any required formal review
criteria, such as the MIB Doctor, media type, and URI type reviews.
No formal reviews are needed.
(13) Have all references within this document been identified as
either normative or informative?
Yes.
(14) Are there normative references to documents that are not ready for
advancement or are otherwise in an unclear state? If such normative
references exist, what is the plan for their completion?
No.
(15) Are there downward normative references references (see RFC 3967)?
If so, list these downward references to support the Area Director in
the Last Call procedure.
There is a normative reference to RFC 2033 (LMTP), which is
Informational. This needs to be called out in the last-call note.
(16) Will publication of this document change the status of any existing
RFCs? Are those RFCs listed on the title page header, listed in the
abstract, and discussed in the introduction? If the RFCs are not listed
in the Abstract and Introduction, explain why, and point to the part of
the document where the relationship of this document to the other RFCs
is discussed. If this information is not in the document, explain why
the interested community considers it unnecessary.
No documents are modified by this one.
(17) Describe the Document Shepherd's review of the IANA considerations
section, especially with regard to its consistency with the body of the
document. Confirm that all protocol extensions that the document makes
are associated with the appropriate reservations in IANA registries.
Confirm that any referenced IANA registries have been clearly
identified. Confirm that newly created IANA registries include a
detailed specification of the initial contents for the registry, that
allocations procedures for future registrations are defined, and a
reasonable name for the new registry has been suggested (see RFC 5226).
The document contains several IANA actions, which are all clearly
specified and correct. No new registries are created.
(18) List any new IANA registries that require Expert Review for future
allocations. Provide any public guidance that the IESG would find
useful in selecting the IANA Experts for these new registries.
None.
(19) Describe reviews and automated checks performed by to validate
sections of the document written in a formal language, such as XML code,
BNF rules, MIB definitions, etc.
I have run the usual idnits and ABNF checks, and all is OK.
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