--On Tuesday, June 17, 2025 10:50 -0700 Eric Rescorla <e...@rtfm.com> wrote:
> I agree with Eliot that we now have an inconsistency with respect to > Section 7.6, but I don't think the fix is to remove the (as Jay > says) very carefully negotiated "historical" text, especially as > part of the idea was to acknowledge historical perspectives. > > Instead, I think the right fix is to revert 7.6 to the original > language from RFC 9280 and add a note that acknowledges that we are > relaxing this property. Perhaps "Note that historically RFCs were > treated as immutable, but [THIS RFC] allows those RFCs to be > reissued provided that the semantic content is preserved to the > greatest extent possible". I have not been able to follow the discussion as closely as I would have liked. However, consider the discussions on different lists lately about exactly what specific words mean (including with or without case distinctions) and, while not phrased that way, whether or not "exact" actually means "exact" and how much context counts. For someone who is trying to depend on the content of an RFC, a condition like "preserved to the greatest extent possible" -- one that is inherently subjective -- is equivalent, or nearly so, to "well, probably the semantic comment that you, the reader, care about and how it is interpreted won't change but maybe it will". And, I'm sorry, but that is ultimately equivalent to "can't trust an RFC to mean what it meant when it was published". I think we should be very cautious about going there or even appearing to do so. john > > -Ekr > > > > On Tue, Jun 17, 2025 at 7:11 AM Eliot Lear <l...@lear.ch> wrote: > >> I do recall, but we are no longer using those properties in the >> same way- they have been modified; and so the text is no longer >> accurate. Also my comments were and are as an individual during >> the community comment phase. >> >> Eliot >> On 17.06.2025 15:42, Jay Daley wrote: >> >> Eliot >> >> >> On 4 Jun 2025, at 11:38, Eliot Lear <l...@lear.ch> <l...@lear.ch> >> wrote: The Chapeau in Section 7 now looks a little funny, and >> historically wrong, given that we appear to be changing history. >> To this end, I suggest the following changes: OLD: >> 7. Historical Properties of the RFC Series >> NEW: >> 7. Properties of the RFC Series >> OLD: >> This section lists some of the properties that have been >> historically regarded as important to the RFC Series. >> NEW: >> This section lists some of the properties that are >> regarded as important to the RFC Series. >> >> You may not recall, but the existing language was a careful >> compromise reflecting some very different views on the >> applicability of these properties. There were a number who >> strongly disagreed with these properties as things to maintain >> going forward and so the wording was chosen to reflect that these >> properties, while once considered important, no longer had >> consensus. In that context, changing this in the RSAB stage of >> processing is quite problematic. >> >> Jay >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> rfc-interest mailing list -- rfc-inter...@rfc-editor.org >> To unsubscribe send an email to rfc-interest-le...@rfc-editor.org >> -- rswg mailing list -- rswg@rfc-editor.org To unsubscribe send an email to rswg-le...@rfc-editor.org
