Network Working Group J. Klensin
Internet-Draft March 23, 2006
Expires: September 24, 2006
A Process Experiment in Normative Reference Handling
draft-klensin-norm-ref-00.txt
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 September 24, 2006.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).
Abstract
The IETF and RFC Editor have a long-standing rule that a document at
a given maturity level cannot be published until all documents it
references as normative are at that maturity level or higher. This
rule has sometimes resulted in very long publication delays for
documents and some claims that it was a major obstruction to
advancing documents in maturity level. The IETF agreed to a way to
bypass this rule with RFC 3967. This document proposes a one-year
process experiment in which the "hold on normative reference" rule
will be replaced by a "note downward normative reference and move on"
Klensin Expires September 24, 2006 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft Normative References March 2006
approach.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Documents Not Yet Processed by the IESG . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2. Documents Already in RFC Editor Queue . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Discussion of Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
7. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 7
Klensin Expires September 24, 2006 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft Normative References March 2006
1. Introduction
The IETF and RFC Editor have a long-standing rule (see, e.g., RFC
2026, Section 4.2.4 [RFC2026] and the extended discussion in RFC 3967
[RFC3967]) that a document at a given maturity level cannot be
published until all documents it references as normative are at that
maturity level or higher. This rule has sometimes resulted in very
long publication delays for documents and some claims that it was a
major obstruction to advancing documents in maturity level.
Recognizing the problems that rule sometimes caused, RFC 3967
established an exception procedure for normative downward references
under some specific circumstances. Perhaps because of its fairly
stringent requirements, RFC 3967 has not proven adequate either to
clear the backlog of documents awaiting upgraded documents or to
prevent additional documents from joining that queue.
This document assumes that downward references are possible only to
documents that are already published or approved for publication.
While downward references to, e.g., Internet Drafts, are possible,
they are not contemplated here.
This document proposes a one-year process experiment in which the
"hold on normative reference" rule will be replaced by a "note
downward normative reference and move on" approach.
2. Proposal
This document specifies a one-year RFC 3933 [RFC3933] process
experiment (see the next section) that creates an alternative to
holding documents until all documents referenced normatively are
upgraded or by applying the procedure of RFC 3967.
2.1. Documents Not Yet Processed by the IESG
An author or editor who requires a normative downward reference uses
the following very simple procedure:
o The reference text (i.e., in the "Normative References" section)
is written as usual.
o A note that indicates that the reference is to a document of a
lower maturity level, that some caution should be used since it
may be less stable than the document from which it is being
referenced, and, optionally, explaining why the downward reference
is appropriate.
The IESG may, at its discretion, specify the exact text to be used.
Klensin Expires September 24, 2006 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft Normative References March 2006
These annotations are part of the document. If members of the
community consider either the downward reference or the annotation
text to be inappropriate, those issues can be raised at any time in
the document life cycle, just as with any other text in the document.
There is no separate review on these references.
At the option of the author, similar notes may be attached to non-
normative references.
2.2. Documents Already in RFC Editor Queue
The IESG may, at its discretion, specify a procedure to be applied to
documents that are already in the RFC Editor queue, awaiting
referenced documents. That procedure might involve asking the RFC
Editor to apply an appropriate annotation to all such documents, or
to a selective list of documents. It might alternately involve the
application of some additional review process to those documents,
such as by directorates or other AD-appointed review committees,
working group chairs, or appointed experts, each subject to appeal.
That list of options is not intended to limit what the IESG might
specify, but to give some indication of possibilities. While nothing
in this document would prevent the IESG from concluding that each
document now on hold for normative references should be put through
an additional Last Call to eliminate the restriction, that decision
would definitely not be in the spirit of the experiment proposed
here.
3. Discussion of Experiment
Several claims have been made about problems that are being caused by
the "no downward references" rule. The number of documents waiting
for lower-maturity documents in the RFC Editor queue is objective and
easily-measured. But claims about how many documents would be
completed and processed to higher maturity levels if the normative
reference rule were eliminated are impossible to validate without
this type of experiment. Consequently, this experiment should serve
three purposes:
1. Prevent any new documents from entering the "hold for normative
reference" queue unless there is an explicit decision made that
doing so is desirable.
2. At the option of the IESG, and under rules it adopts, clear the
RFC Editor's current "hold for normative reference" queue.
3. Permit the community to examine questions of how much effective
elimination of the normative reference rule increases document
throughput and the number of documents being advanced.
Klensin Expires September 24, 2006 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft Normative References March 2006
4. Security Considerations
This document specifies an IETF procedure. It is not believed to
raise any security issues although, in principle, relaxing the
normative downward reference rules for references associated with
security mechanisms could make a specification less stable and hence
less secure.
5. IANA Considerations
This document requires no actions by the IANA.
6. Acknowledgments
This proposal was suggested by a comment by Spencer Dawkins and many
complaints about the negative impact of the current rules. The
author is unsure about the validity of some of those complaints; the
proposal is, in part, a way to test the validity question. Spencer
also provided helpful comments on a preliminary draft.
7. Normative References
[RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision
3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996.
[RFC3933] Klensin, J. and S. Dawkins, "A Model for IETF Process
Experiments", BCP 93, RFC 3933, November 2004.
[RFC3967] Bush, R. and T. Narten, "Clarifying when Standards Track
Documents may Refer Normatively to Documents at a Lower
Level", BCP 97, RFC 3967, December 2004.
Klensin Expires September 24, 2006 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft Normative References March 2006
Author's Address
John C Klensin
1770 Massachusetts Ave, #322
Cambridge, MA 02140
USA
Phone: +1 617 491 5735
Email: john-ietf@jck.com
Klensin Expires September 24, 2006 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft Normative References March 2006
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 (2006). 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.
Klensin Expires September 24, 2006 [Page 7]
