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Boyd Lynn Gerber <gerberb(_at_)zenez(_dot_)com> writes:
After the last council session and what I read from the IETF/IESG, maybe
the next generation needs to be done. I am very glad we have a SPF V1
Spec and it documents what exists now. From all the rumbling, on the
standards list, it appears they really want the next generation of SPF.
Maybe we should take some time and start developing it.
Personally, I do not think the time is right to start working on the
next generation of SPF. There is already enough confusion in the IESG
(and elsewhere) about whether SPFv1 is obsolete because SID uses
spf2.0 records.
I am not suggesting to stop the work on getting the existing version as an
RFC, but with what has been happening a Revised/Version 2/3 SPF may make a
lot of sense. It seems they really want something that has come from the
1.5-2.0 years of SPF experience.
First off, the current SPFv1 spec does include things that we have
learned over the last 1.5 years. There are several features in the
mengwong-spf-* drafts that were never used widely, if ever, and they
have been dropped. Things that can be changed and are needed to get
approval from the IETF have been changed. The whole spec has been
gone over by many people in the last year and a half and I think the
result is *MUCH* clearer, more complete, and more accurate.
Secondly, I really doubt that the IESG cares that much about what has
been learned. I think they have given the "two year experimentation
time" as a stalling tactic in hopes that the market will have made a
decision by then, and maybe something better than SPF will come
along. (DomainKeys? IIM? S/MIME adoption?)
I think we need to finish what we have started and not lose focus.
Designing a new spec is *much* more fun than getting a current spec
deployed, but I think getting SPFv1 widely deployed is much more
important than creating an SPF version 2 or 3.
-wayne