Network Working Group B. Carpenter
Internet-Draft IBM
Expires: December 3, 2005 June 2005
A two stage standards process
draft-carpenter-newtrk-twostep-00
Status of this Memo
By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any
applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware
have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes
aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that
other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
Drafts.
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."
The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt.
The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.
This Internet-Draft will expire on December 3, 2005.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).
Abstract
This document proposes several changes of principle to the Internet
standards process, especially a reduction from three to two stages in
the standards track.
Carpenter Expires December 3, 2005 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft Two stage June 2005
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Stage 1: Proposed Standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Stage 2: Interoperable Standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Stage 3: No stage three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Timing rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. IS can reference PS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
7. The STD designation, and updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
8. Transitional arrangements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
9. Not excluded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
10. Housekeeping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
11. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
12. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
13. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
14. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . 8
Carpenter Expires December 3, 2005 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft Two stage June 2005
1. Introduction
This document proposes several changes of principle to the Internet
standards process defined in [1].
The background for this proposal is the published analysis of
problems in the IETF [2], various discussions in the IETF's "New IETF
Standards Track Discussion" (newtrk) working group, various largely
expired drafts, and the author's personal experience. The proposal
is purely personal and specifically has not been discussed in the
IESG. It has little claim to originality (see Acknowledgements).
The problems tackled by this proposal are those of clumsiness in the
three-stage standards process, and related clumsiness in the clarity
and useability of IETF standards. This draft is deliberately short
on rationale and explanation - the interested reader should study the
above references and discussions carefully.
2. Stage 1: Proposed Standard
This is exactly as described in [1].
3. Stage 2: Interoperable Standard
This is very similar to Draft Standard as described in [1]. The
name is changed partly to mark the change, partly because "Draft
Standard" is sometimes confused with Internet-Draft, and partly to
emphasise the IETF's value statement of "rough consensus and running
code."
The criteria for advancing from Proposed Standard to Interoperable
Standard are roughly the same as the current criteria for moving to
Draft Standard. But two inconveniences in the present
interoperability requirements have been encountered:
1. The objective is to validate that a specification contains only
features that have been demonstrated to be interoperable. The
current text does not make it crystal clear that this, and not
the availability of conformant implementations, is being
demonstrated: the essential difference being that all features
must be interoperable, not that all implementations must be shown
to support all features.
2. The current text requires features that have not been
demonstrated as interoperable to be removed from the
specification. This may cause an RFC to be updated, at a cost of
many months delay, even if only one or two features have not been
demonstrated to interoperate. The proposed new text would also
allow an RFC to be upgraded without change, even if some features
had not been proved interoperable, as long as this fact was duly
Carpenter Expires December 3, 2005 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft Two stage June 2005
documented.
Thus, this paragraph:
"The requirement for at least two independent and interoperable
implementations applies to all of the options and features of the
specification. In cases in which one or more options or features
have not been demonstrated in at least two interoperable
implementations, the specification may advance to the Draft Standard
level only if those options or features are removed."
would be replaced by:
"The requirement for at least two independent and interoperable
implementations applies to each of the options and features of the
specification considered individually. In cases in which one or more
options or features have not been demonstrated in at least two
interoperable implementations, the specification may advance to the
Interoperable Standard level only if those options or features are
removed, or marked as untested for interoperability in a revised
specification or in an external document."
4. Stage 3: No stage three
The final, rare, "Standard" stage is simply abolished. The
difference between the second and third stages isn't enough to
justify the bureaucracy, and there is nothing negative about
"Interoperable Standard" as the final state.
5. Timing rules
The minimum time at "Proposed Standard" would remain at six months.
The highly theoretical rule about annual review of PS documents after
two years would be dropped to a recommendation, and no review cycle
would be mandated for IS documents.
A discussion point is whether the current practice of heaving a sigh
of relief after a WG gets its last draft published as PS is correct,
or whether the process should require the WG to remain active until
the six months at PS has expired, with a decision point then at which
the Area Director and the WG Chair(s) decide whether to close the WG
or start the process of upgrading to IS.
It is proposed in any case that the six month (and two year) timer
should start when the IESG approval announcement for a document is
sent, not when the RFC is published. As an adjunct to this, approved
drafts should be parked in a special public directory while they are
in the RFC queue, so that they are readily available to implementers.
Carpenter Expires December 3, 2005 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft Two stage June 2005
6. IS can reference PS
Interoperable Standards would be allowed to make normative references
to Proposed Standards. The current rule prohibiting "down
references" is a major cause of stickiness in the publication
process. This change would, in theory, allow an Interoperable
Standard to call out features that have not been formally agreed to
be demonstrably interoperable. But it's a matter of common sense -
if we want to be able to promote PS documents expeditiously, we have
to allow this form of down reference. (It is not proposed to allow
down references to Internet-Drafts.)
7. The STD designation, and updates
Presently, an STD designation and number is only given to a document
(or document set) at the full Standard level. This can cause extreme
confusion when a full Standard is technically obsoleted by a Proposed
Standard. What is an implementer to do?
One option is to simply abolish the STD designation, which is little
used anyway.
The alternative is to assign the STD designation (and number) to a
document (or document set) at PS level; if a PS is promoted to IS,
its STD number goes with it; if an IS is obsoleted by a PS, the STD
number reverts to the PS. In any case, this function (assigning
documents to specific STD designations) would be an IETF (WG or IESG)
matter and not an RFC Editor action as today.
8. Transitional arrangements
On the day these changes enter service, all existing DS and Standard
RFCs would be automatically reclassified as Interoperable Standard
RFCs. Corresponding changes would be made to the RFC Index and
various features of the RFC Editor site and any other RFC
repositories displaying the status of RFCs.
If and only if the STD designation is retained, all existing STD
designations will be applied as follows:
1. If the old Standard has not been obsoleted, it is now an IS with
the same STD designation.
2. If the old Standard has been obsoleted, the STD designation goes
to the document(s) that obsoleted it, which may be PS, IS or a
mixture.
3. If the old Standard has been updated, the STD designation is
added to the document(s) that updated it, which may be PS, IS or
a mixture.
Carpenter Expires December 3, 2005 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft Two stage June 2005
4. The IESG would designate a team or teams to rapidly classify all
PS and IS documents not assigned an STD designation by the above
process into new STD designations.
(If the STD designation is abolished, these steps would be
unnecessary, but various cleanings up of the RFC Index and the RFC
Editor web site would be needed to remove all references to STD.)
9. Not excluded
The above changes have been constructed in such a way that they do
not exclude the notions of WG Snapshots (drafts declared to be in a
stable state by the WG), Stable Snapshots (drafts declared to be in a
stable state with IESG agreement) or Internet Standards Documentation
(ISDs, external descriptors of a set of RFCs as a single
standard)[3].
10. Housekeeping
Obviously, [1] will need considerable editing in addition to the
above changes, for example to remove the intellectual property
material which is already obsolete. Also, [4], which defined the STD
designation, should be obsoleted. (Even if the STD designation is
retained, it should be fully described in the replacement for [1].)
An unrelated housekeeping item is to clarify that, occasionally, the
IESG may decide to approve a document for immediate publication as
Historic (rather than Informational), when it is desired to publish
it for the record but it is already overtaken by events.
11. Security Considerations
This document does not directly affect the security of the Internet.
12. IANA Considerations
This document requests no action by the IANA.
13. Acknowledgements
A two-stage standards track proposal was made Spencer Dawkins,
Charlie Perkins and Dave Crocker in 2003, which also contained a
version of the WG Snapshot proposal. Another variant including
Stable Snapshots was made by Scott Bradner in 2004. Comments on the
present draft by Spencer Dawkins are gratefully acknowledged.
This document was produced using the xml2rfc tool[5].
Carpenter Expires December 3, 2005 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft Two stage June 2005
14. Informative References
[1] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3",
BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996.
[2] Davies, E., "IETF Problem Statement", RFC 3774, May 2004.
[3] Klensin, J. and J. Loughney, "Internet Standards Documentation
(ISDs)", draft-ietf-newtrk-repurposing-isd-03 (work in
progress), April 2005.
[4] Postel, J., "Introduction to the STD Notes", RFC 1311,
March 1992.
[5] Rose, M., "Writing I-Ds and RFCs using XML", RFC 2629,
June 1999.
Author's Address
Brian Carpenter
IBM
48 Avenue Giuseppe Motta
1211 Geneva 2,
Switzerland
Email: brc@zurich.ibm.com
Carpenter Expires December 3, 2005 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft Two stage June 2005
Intellectual Property Statement
The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has
made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information
on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be
found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any
assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an
attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of
such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this
specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at
http://www.ietf.org/ipr.
The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at
ietf-ipr@ietf.org.
Disclaimer of Validity
This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
"AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET
ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE
INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005). This document is subject
to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and
except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights.
Acknowledgment
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
Internet Society.
Carpenter Expires December 3, 2005 [Page 8]