On Tue, Jul 7, 2026 at 6:36 PM John Levine <[email protected]> wrote:

> It appears that Martin Thomson  <[email protected]> said:
> >Pulling back to Brian's email, because the discussion has wandered off.
> >
> >I reach a different conclusion.  It's not really broken as it is.
>
> I'd draw a different conclusion. We really need a better way to update our
> standards.


Unsurprisingly, I agree with this.


>
> Other SDOs manage to publish updated editions of their standards with a
> process
> to add or change parts of them without having to reissue the whole thing.
>

Here is a potentially nonexclusive list of cases, in rough order from
smallest to biggest:

- Editorial (non-semantic) changes (typos, rewrites, etc.)
- Clarifications that are theoretically semantic (e.g., fixing things where
  everyone agrees what the the spec should say but it doesn't
  say it or it's unclear).
- Isolated semantic changes (e.g., forbidding algorithms, adding
  new algorithms, etc.)
- Significant extensions (something like TLS ECH)
- Total rewrites

One important question is how high in this ladder we can go
while maintaining a single document. My personal inclination
is pretty high, up to and including some extensions, but I
imagine others will have different beliefs.

-Ekr




> I realize this is a bigger discussion than whether to put Updates: or
> Amends: in
> the XML header, but I think it's a real problem we've been avoiding for a
> very
> long time.
>
> R's,
> John
>
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