Hi Elwyn:
Responsible AD Hat on:
I'm going to enter a DISCUSS position, to make sure this point gets
discussion among the IESG before this progresses. The whole point of the
repeated last call was to get feedback on the downref, and this
certainly counts :-)
All hats off:
As an individual, I still disagree. Specifics inline:
On 12 Aug 2016, at 18:14, Elwyn Davies wrote:
Hi, Ben.
AFAICS there is only one really similar case (downref to RFC 6707)
which was approved just last month (based on a problem statement).
I'm pretty sure there are more than that; the idea that terminology
references may need to be normative has come up repeatedly during IESG
reviews over the past year or so.
My concern here is that the other framework and requirements
documents are documents that continue to have a relevance (such as
telling a network operator what is necessary to allow deployment of
some IETF-defined technology) rather than being something that defines
what a WG is intending to work on (RFC 6707 and RFC 7206 are
respectively a problem statement and a protocol requirements
statement). As we know, there has been some considerable discussion
of whether we should really be publishing these documents as RFCs
given that they are snapshots of a discussion position at a point in
time and are only really of academic interest once the working group
has done its work.
I agree that we should cut down on publication of "requirements", "use
case", etc documents that do not have long term archival value. But I
don't think there should be as hard of a line as you describe. In
particular, sometimes they are valuable for nailing down especially
hard-won consensus about requirements. I think that is true for RFC
7206.
But in any case, I think this is a red herring. RFC 7206 has been
published. This discussion isn't going to change that.
Allowing them to be used as normative references further embeds them
into the system.
I don't see why. Not every action creates a precedent. I do not propose
that we add RFC to the downref registry.
I would also caution that terminology and such like as defined in
(protocol) requirements and problem statements are generally written
and approved prior to the standards documents in which the are
referenced. Further, I am not totally convinced that the same degree
of rigour is applied to the review of this type of document. Thus it
is vitally important to ensure that the definitions are still correct,
complete and reflect what is needed for the standard(s): The
protocols don't always exactly match the requirements - and there may
have been some subtle bending of the meaning of terms over time!
If the downref is to be accepted, then I (and other reviewers) need to
go back and have a harder read of the definitions, unless they think
they already did.
I believe the working group intent was that the definitions stated in
RFC 7206 are the ones used in the protocol.
One consequential question: Is it time for either an update or
some commentary on RFC 3967 as there seems to be a relaxation of the
statements in Section 2?
RFC 3967 section 2 makes no attempt to be exhaustive. It basically says
"there are some reasons to make exceptions. Here are some examples."
(There actually is an ongoing discussion about relaxing bits of RFC
3967. See draft-leiba-3967upd-downref-00, especially the third paragraph
of section 1.)
However
My view is just that... if the authors, WG, you as AD and the IESG are
happy with the downref and I am in a minority of one (or a very small
number) of the IETF, then there is rough concensus and I'll be fine
with the outcome. It is only a gen-art revew...
It's a gen-art review on an IETF last call done _specifically_ for the
downref, so I think the outcome is relevant :-)
Cheers,Elwyn
PSI note that it wouldn't be too late to undo the relaxation.. the
draft referencing RFC 6707 is still with the RFC Editor ;-)
/E
[...]
Thanks!
Ben.
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