Given that in one example already you and Michael came to different
conclusions about whether something was amends or extends, I think it is
quite reasonable to doubt that adding terms will clarify things.
In contrast, specifying that the documents need to clearly describe what
they are changing and what the relationship is to the base does seem to
help the problem. Does it solve all problems? No. Does it make things
worse? No.
Yours,
Joel
On 7/7/2026 4:09 PM, Mirja Kuehlewind (IETF) wrote:
See inline.
On 7. Jul 2026, at 20:19, Eric Rescorla <[email protected]> wrote:
On Tue, Jul 7, 2026 at 9:38 AM Mirja Kuehlewind (IETF)
<[email protected]> wrote:
The discussion on which tag applies would be at least based on
something written and consensus based and not just on differing
strong opinions about how to do it right. That should make the
discussion easier and also create less of them. That’s the goal!
Maybe it wouldn’t avoid it entirely but I don’t think that a good
reason to not do it as I don’t think there is a perfect solution
(and probably there don’t need to be one; sometimes you simply
need to have a discussion and make a decision).
I'm sorry, I don't agree. My view is that adding more tags with
detailed guidelines is just as likely to create more debate, not
less. If we are to do something here, I would instead replace both
Obsoletes and Updates with some variant of "look over here" or "you
might be interested in", thus avoiding any debate.
That’s why we also added the “see also” tag. Why do you think that
“amends” and “extends” are not clear?
Having some potentially confusing tags on old RFCs (that could be
revised if needed) doesn’t seem to be worse than what we have
right now: one tag that is not defined at all and a mismatch of
use and interpretation as everybody makes up their own requirements.
I think we just have different opinions.
-Ekr
On 7. Jul 2026, at 17:02, Eric Rescorla <[email protected]> wrote:
On Tue, Jul 7, 2026 at 7:54 AM Michael Richardson
<[email protected] <mailto:mcr%[email protected]>> wrote:
Mirja Kuehlewind \(IETF\)
<[email protected]> wrote:
Agreed!
I think that it would be brilliant if an AD review told the WG:
"Yeah, that document is not an Updates-123, it's an
Updates-545, right?"
WG: Oh yeah, we didn't change our meta-data as our I-D
evolved into being
better at interoperating with old thing FOO.
This seems like the optimistic view. The pessimistic view is
that it will usher
in a whole new round of arguments about whether it should be
Updates-123 or
Updates-545.
> Also my question is what’s the harm I trying it. If it
doesn’t help, we
> stop it again. However, I think there is a chance to
at least improve
> the situation even though we might not fix all issues
entirely.
+1
In addition to the concern above, namely creating new arguments
about
which tag applies, if it turns out not to work, we end up with a
bunch of
confusing and no-longer-used tags in perpetuity.
-Ekr
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