Removing Expiration Notices from Internet-Drafts
draft-thomson-gendispatch-no-expiry-01

General Area Dispatch                                         M. Thomson
Internet-Draft                                                   Mozilla
Updates: 2026, 2418 (if approved)                             P. Hoffman
Intended status: Best Current Practice                             ICANN
Expires: 7 March 2024                                   4 September 2023

            Removing Expiration Notices from Internet-Drafts
                 draft-thomson-gendispatch-no-expiry-01

Abstract

   The long-standing policy of requiring that Internet-Drafts bear an
   expiration date is no longer necessary.  This document removes
   requirements for expiration for Internet-Drafts from RFC 2026/BCP 9
   and RFC 2418/BCP 25.

About This Document

   This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   The latest revision of this draft can be found at
   https://martinthomson.github.io/no-expiry/draft-thomson-gendispatch-
   no-expiry.html.  Status information for this document may be found at
   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-thomson-gendispatch-no-
   expiry/.

   Discussion of this document takes place on the General Area Dispatch
   Working Group mailing list (mailto:gendispatch@ietf.org), which is
   archived at https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/gendispatch/.
   Subscribe at https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/gendispatch/.

   Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
   https://github.com/martinthomson/no-expiry.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

Thomson & Hoffman         Expires 7 March 2024                  [Page 1]
Internet-Draft             Drafts Aren't Milk             September 2023

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on 7 March 2024.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2023 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
   license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
   and restrictions with respect to this document.  Code Components
   extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as
   described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Removing Internet-Draft Expiration  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Replacement Procedures  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Security and Privacy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   5.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   6.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4

1.  Introduction

   The Content Guidelines for Internet Drafts [IDCG] requires that
   Internet-Drafts include an expiration statement.  Tooling and IETF
   practice insist on Internet-Drafts including an expiry date 185 days
   after their posting.  After this expiration date, some systems might
   display an Internet-Draft differently or not at all, with some
   exceptions, such as when the document is under IESG review.

   Expiration of drafts is believed to encourage authors to update
   drafts that they wish to discuss.  Expired drafts are no longer
   served from the primary IETF servers.

Thomson & Hoffman         Expires 7 March 2024                  [Page 2]
Internet-Draft             Drafts Aren't Milk             September 2023

   Copies of expired drafts are retained and can be obtained using other
   services.  Expired drafts are routinely cited and referenced.
   Published RFCs routinely include informative references to drafts,
   which then usually expire.  Many IANA registries refer to expired
   drafts.

2.  Removing Internet-Draft Expiration

   Forced expiration serves no purpose that is not adequately served by
   the publication date on the document.

   The date of posting for an Internet-Draft is the best -- or perhaps
   only -- information available that can be added to a document the
   time of publication that might help readers understand whether the
   content is valid.  Future events might invalidate the content
   virtually immediately; conversely, an Internet-Draft could also
   remain relevant for an arbitrarily long period of time.

   This document proposes that the "Expires:" field be removed from the
   header of submitted Internet-Drafts, and that the boilerplate be
   amended as follows:

   OLD:

      Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six
      months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other
      documents at any time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts
      as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in
      progress."

   NEW:

      Internet-Drafts are draft documents that may be updated, replaced,
      or obsoleted by other documents at any time.  It is inappropriate
      to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   Creating a revision to the Content Guidelines [IDCG] will be
   necessary to remove references to expiration.

   This document updates RFC 2026 [STD-PROCESS] to remove the second
   paragraph of Section 2.2 and RFC 2418 [WG] to remove a single mention
   of expiration from Section 7.2.

   Other than these specific changes, both RFC 2026 and RFC 2418 refer
   to expiration of drafts.  With this change, this is understood to
   apply to drafts that are marked as "dead" in tooling.

Thomson & Hoffman         Expires 7 March 2024                  [Page 3]
Internet-Draft             Drafts Aren't Milk             September 2023

3.  Replacement Procedures

   The expiration of a draft is intended to ensure that the topic is
   disqualified from consideration and discussion.  At the same time,
   updating a draft indicates continued interest from the authors.

   Working group chairs might choose to concentrate efforts on drafts
   that have been recently updated.  For instance, when setting an
   agenda for a session, chairs might give precedence to documents that
   have been updated since the preceding session.

   Expiration has also been used as a reminder to authors to update
   documents.  A substitute for expiration reminders might be to provide
   a note in advance of planned sessions.  For instance, for an upcoming
   session N+1, a reminder might be issued for drafts that have not been
   updated in the interval between session N and session N+1, but were
   updated between session N-1 and session N.

4.  Security and Privacy Considerations

   This document has no direct implications on security or privacy.

5.  IANA Considerations

   This document makes no request of IANA.

6.  Normative References

   [IDCG]     "Content guidelines overview", 1 June 2022,
              <https://authors.ietf.org/en/content-guidelines-overview>.

   [STD-PROCESS]
              Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision
              3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, DOI 10.17487/RFC2026, October 1996,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2026>.

   [WG]       Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and
              Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 2418, DOI 10.17487/RFC2418,
              September 1998, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2418>.

Authors' Addresses

   Martin Thomson
   Mozilla
   Email: mt@lowentropy.net

Thomson & Hoffman         Expires 7 March 2024                  [Page 4]
Internet-Draft             Drafts Aren't Milk             September 2023

   Paul Hoffman
   ICANN
   Email: paul.hoffman@icann.org

Thomson & Hoffman         Expires 7 March 2024                  [Page 5]