Network Working Group J. Klensin
Internet-Draft December 18, 2006
Expires: June 21, 2007
A Process Experiment in Normative Reference Handling
draft-klensin-norm-ref-02.txt
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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"
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approach.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1. Source Documents Not Yet Processed by the IESG . . . . . . 4
3.2. Documents Already in RFC Editor Queue . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Target Documents that Can Be Referenced This Way . . . . . . . 4
5. Target documents not on the standards track . . . . . . . . . . 5
6. Discussion of Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
9. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
10. Changes for version -02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
11. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 8
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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
standards-track documents (including BCPs) that are already
published. While downward references to, e.g., Internet Drafts, are
theoretically 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. Terminology
A reference involves two documents, the one in which the reference is
embedded and the document referenced. Where needed for clarity,
these documents are referred to as the "source document" and "target
document" respectively.
The term "standards track document", as used in this specification,
is assumed to include BCPs but not Informational or Experimental
documents of any variety or origin.
3. Proposal
This document specifies a one-year RFC 3933 [RFC3933] process
experiment (see the next section) that creates an alternative to
holding source documents until all target documents referenced
normatively are upgraded or by applying the procedure of RFC 3967.
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3.1. Source 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 of
the source document) is written as usual.
o A note is included in the reference text that indicates that the
reference is to a target 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.
These annotations are part of the source 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.
3.2. Documents Already in RFC Editor Queue
The IESG may, at its discretion, specify a procedure to be applied to
source documents that are already in the RFC Editor queue, awaiting
target 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 to published target
documents at a lower maturity level 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.
4. Target Documents that Can Be Referenced This Way
The "downward reference by annotation" model specified here is
applicable only to published standards track RFCs at lower maturity
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levels. If references are needed to informational document, the
procedures specified in RFC 3967 MUST be used for downward references
(see Section 5).
Obviously such downward references are part of the relevant source
document at IETF Last Call and subject to comments from the
community.
Advancing documents, when appropriate, is still considered preferable
to the use of either this procedure or the one specified in RFC 3967.
This specification does not impose a specific test or requirement to
determine appropriateness, partially because it would be impossible
to do so for the general case, but the intention is to permit the
IESG and the community to balance the importance of getting a source
document published against the time and difficulty associated with
upgrading a target document. That requirement is intended to be less
stringent than the one of RFC 3967.
5. Target documents not on the standards track
For consistency, in the case of a normative reference to a document
not on the standards track that is approved under the procedures
defined in RFC 3967, the annotation described in Section 3.1, or the
retrospective annotation described in Section 3.2, SHOULD be added to
the reference unless the IESG, after consideration of Last Call
input, concludes it is inappropriate.
6. 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 for standards-track documents already published
(see Section 4) 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 of
documents that reference appropriate target document already
published or approved.
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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.
Should the community conclude that the experiment had undesirable
impacts, i.e., that a more traditional view of downward references
was appropriate, we will have some set of documents that will have
been approved and published under these rules. It might then be
appropriate to note in the various indexes that those documents
contained dependencies that would not generally be acceptable, at
least until those dependencies were resolved.
At the end of the year, if the IESG judges that the experiment has
been a success, the procedure may be used for a further six months to
allow time for the drafting of a suitable BCP.
7. 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.
8. IANA Considerations
This document requires no actions by the IANA.
9. 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. It was
revised in response to extensive discussion in the IESG and benefited
significantly by comments by Brian Carpenter.
10. Changes for version -02
[[anchor8: RFC Editor, please remove this section.]]
The proposal has been significantly trimmed based on discussion with
the IESG during and after Last Call. In particular, the provisions
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for downward references to approved, but unpublished, Internet-Drafts
and for references to Informational documents have been removed. The
revised procedure applies only to published standards-track documents
at a lower maturity level.
Because of these changes, a section has been added that updates RFC
3967 to add annotations parallel to those specified here if that
procedure is used.
Some editorial corrections have also been made to improve clarity.
11. 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.
Author's Address
John C Klensin
1770 Massachusetts Ave, #322
Cambridge, MA 02140
USA
Phone: +1 617 491 5735
Email: john-ietf@jck.com
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