Internet DRAFT - draft-halpern-gendispatch-consensusinformational
draft-halpern-gendispatch-consensusinformational
Network Working Group J. M. Halpern, Ed.
Internet-Draft Ericsson
Updates: 2026 (if approved) E. K. Rescorla, Ed.
Intended status: Best Current Practice Mozilla
Expires: 6 September 2020 5 March 2020
IETF Stream Documents Require IETF Rough Consensus
draft-halpern-gendispatch-consensusinformational-04
Abstract
This document proposes that the IETF never publish any IETF Stream
RFCs without IETF rough consensus. This updates RFC 2026.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 6 September 2020.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
4. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
7. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
8. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1. Introduction
IETF procedures, as defined by [RFC2026], allow for Informational or
Experimental RFCs to be published without IETF rough consensus. For
context, it should be remembered that this RFC predates the
separation of the various streams (e.g. IRTF, IAB, and Independent.)
When it was written, there were only "RFC"s.
As a consequence, it was permitted for the IESG to approve an
Internet Draft for publication as an RFC without IETF rough
consensus.
2. Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
3. Action
The IETF MUST NOT publish RFCs on the IETF Stream without
establishing IETF rough consensus for publication.
4. Discussion
The IETF procedures prior to publication of this BCP permited such
informational or experimental publication without IETF rough
consensus. In 2007 the IESG issued a statement saying that no
document will be issued without first conducting an IETF Last Call
[IESG-STATE-AD]. While this apparently improved the situation,
looking closely it made it worse. Rather than publishing documents
without verifying that there is rough consensus, as the wording in
[RFC2026] suggests, this had the IESG explicitly publishing documents
on the IETF Stream that have failed to achieve rough consensus.
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One could argue that there is a need for publishing some documents
that the community can not agree on. However, we have an explicit
path for such publication, namely the Independent Stream. Or, for
research documents, the IRTF Stream, which explicitly publishes many
minority opinion Informational RFCs.
If this proposal is not accepted, there is still a minor problem to
be addressed. When a non-consensus document is published, the
current boilerplate simply omits the sentence claiming that there is
consensus. If the community feels that we need to keep the right for
the IESG to publish Informational or Experimental RFCs without IETF
rough consensus, then please, the IAB SHOULD use its authority over
the boilerplate for RFCs to make the boilerplate explicit rather than
relying on readers to detect a missing sentence.
Editors Note: The above paragraph and this note should be removed
prior to publication as an RFC, as the paragraph will then be OBE.
5. IANA Considerations
No values are assigned in this document, no registries are created,
and there is no action assigned to the IANA by this document.
6. Security Considerations
This document introduces no new security considerations. It is a
process document about changes to the rules for certain corner cases
in publishing IETF Stream RFCs. However, this procedure will prevent
publication of IETF stream documents that have not reached rough
consensus about their security aspects, thus potentially improving
security aspects of IETF stream documents.
7. Normative References
[RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision
3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, DOI 10.17487/RFC2026, October 1996,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2026>.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
8. Informative References
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[IESG-STATE-AD]
"IESG Statement on Guidance on Area Director Sponsoring of
Documents",
<https://ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/statements/area-
director-sponsoring-documents/>.
Authors' Addresses
Joel M. Halpern (editor)
Ericsson
P. O. Box 6049
Leesburg, VA 20178
United States of America
Email: joel.halpern@ericsson.com
Eric K. Rescorla (editor)
Mozilla
331 E. Evelyn Ave
Mountain View, CA 94101
United States of America
Email: ekr@rtfm.com
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