Purely as a process clarification (I don't care enough one way
or the other, but I haven't been involved in JSON work), is it
correct that, if someone wanted the state that Joe asked about
(i.e., no normative references to CBOR), they would need to take
one of the following three steps:
(1) Appeal your just-announced decision, asking that the
document be reclassified to Experimental, Informational, or, I
suppose, Historic?
If someone really thought it was in the best interest of the IETF to
reclassify the document, yes, they could appeal my decision; talking
to the IETF Chair would be the proper path.
(2) Generate an I-D specifying one of the above four results and
the reasons for it and try to get that I-D approved.
That would be an alternative path to getting the document reclassified.
Reclassifying the document would not stop anyone from using it as a
normative reference, now that we permit downrefs.
(3) Generate an I-D for an Applicability Statement that would
identify CBOR as "not recommended" and try to get it approved.
While that would not prevent a normative reference requiring
CBOR use, it would certainly touch off an interesting discussion
should anyone try to do it.
A "CBOR Considered Harmful" document would be a more extreme case of (2), yes.
Does that correctly summarize the process alternatives?
It seems like it. I imagine that, creative sorts that we are, we
could manage to come up with other wrinkles. As I've said, I think
none of them are in our best interest at this point.
Barry