In <41B64E5D(_dot_)1EC5(_at_)xyzzy(_dot_)claranet(_dot_)de> Frank Ellermann
<nobody(_at_)xyzzy(_dot_)claranet(_dot_)de> writes:
Hannah Schroeter wrote:
[STD 10]
Obsoleted by RFC2821
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yes, 2821 claims to obsolete 821. But the official standard is
still 821. I'm not yet sure how this "IETF standard process"
is supposed to work, maybe RfC 2821 is blocked in its progress
because it has some problems - like forgeries and forwarding.
According to RFC2026 section 3.2, a standard track RFC can not have
normative reference to another RFC that has a lower maturity level.
It is my understanding that a very large number of RFCs are blocked
from advancing from the Proposed Standard maturity level to Draft
Standard (and then onto Internet Standard) because they depend on
other RFCs that are stuck at Proposed Standard, because those RFCs
reference RFCs that are stuck, etc.
For example, I checked through the references in RFC2821 and the fourth
one is RFC2440 "OpenPGP Message Format", which is still a Proposed
Standard. RFC2440 depends on RFC2015, which is still a Proposed
Standard. RFC2015 depends on RFC1847, which is still a Proposed
Standard. I stopped checking at that point.
This interlocking mess of dependencies means that almost nothing can
advance from Proposed Standard until the entire mess advances. This
has created an informal understanding that some Proposed Standards are
*wink wink* better than other Proposed Standards and even better than
Internet Standards. For example, almost everyone uses RFC2821 as the
standard for SMTP, even though it is a Proposed Standard, rather than
RFC821.
-wayne