Network Working Group R. Atkinson, Editor Internet-Draft Extreme Networks Expires: 22 July 2006 22 February 2006 A two stage standards process draft-atkinson-newtrk-twostep-00.txt Status of this Memo By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79. This document is subject to the rights, licenses, and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on 22 July 2006. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). Abstract This document proposes several changes to the Internet standards process, especially a reduction from three to two stages in the IETF standards track. Atkinson (Editor) Expires 22 July 2006 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Two stage 22 February 2006 Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Stage 1: Proposed Standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. Stage 2: Interoperable Standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4. Stage 3: No stage three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5. Timing rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6. IS can reference PS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 7. The STD designation, and updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 8. Transitional arrangements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 9. Not excluded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 10. Housekeeping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 11. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 12. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 13. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 14. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 9 Atkinson (Editor) Expires 22 July 2006 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Two stage 22 February 2006 1. Introduction This document proposes several changes to the Internet standards process defined in RFC-2026. [1] These changes are designed to simplify the process. They seek to reduce the set of impediments to standards progression without any major changes to Internet engineering philosophy. The background for this proposal is the published analysis of problems in the IETF [2], various discussions in the IETF's "New IETF Standards Track Discussion" (newtrk) working group, various largely expired drafts, the original author's personal experience, and the editor's personal experience. It has little claim to originality (see Acknowledgements). The problems tackled by this proposal are those of clumsiness in the three-stage standards process, and related clumsiness in the clarity and useability of IETF standards. This draft is deliberately short on rationale and explanation - the interested reader should study the above references and discussions carefully. 2. Stage 1: Proposed Standard This is exactly as described in RFC-2026. [1] 3. Stage 2: Interoperable Standard This is very similar to Draft Standard as described in [1]. The name is changed partly to mark the change, partly because people outside the IETF often confuse "Draft Standard" with "Internet-Draft", and partly to emphasise the IETF's value statement of "rough consensus and running code." The criteria for advancing from Proposed Standard to Interoperable Standard are roughly the same as the current criteria for moving to Draft Standard. However, two inconveniences in the present advancement process and interoperability requirements have been encountered: 1. The objective is to validate that a specification contains only features that have been demonstrated to be interoperable. The current text does not make it crystal clear that this, and not the availability of conformant implementations, is being demonstrated: the essential difference being that all features must be interoperable, not that all implementations must be shown to support all features. Atkinson (Editor) Expires 22 July 2006 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Two stage 22 February 2006 2. The current text requires features that have not been demonstrated as interoperable to be removed from the specification. This may cause an RFC to be updated, at a cost of many months delay, even if only one or two features have not been demonstrated to interoperate. The proposed new text would also allow an RFC to be upgraded without change, even if some features had not been proved interoperable, as long as this fact was duly documented. Thus, this paragraph: "The requirement for at least two independent and interoperable implementations applies to all of the options and features of the specification. In cases in which one or more options or features have not been demonstrated in at least two interoperable implementations, the specification may advance to the Draft Standard level only if those options or features are removed." is replaced by: "The requirement for at least two independent and interoperable implementations applies to each of the options and features of the specification considered individually. In cases in which one or more options or features have not been demonstrated in at least two interoperable implementations, the specification may advance to the Interoperable Standard level only if those options or features are removed, or marked as untested for interoperability in a revised specification or in an external document available at the IETF web site and at the IETF ftp site." 4. Stage 3: No stage three The final, rare, "Standard" stage is simply abolished. The difference between the second and third stages isn't enough to justify the extra bureaucracy, and there is nothing negative about "Interoperable Standard" as the final state. 5. Timing rules The minimum time at "Proposed Standard" remains six months. The highly theoretical rule about annual review of PS documents after two years is dropped to a recommendation; no review cycle is mandated for IS documents. The six month (and two year) timer starts when the IESG approval announcement for a document is sent, not when the RFC is published. As an adjunct to this, approved drafts should be parked in a special public directory while they are in the RFC queue, so that they are Atkinson (Editor) Expires 22 July 2006 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Two stage 22 February 2006 readily available to implementers. 6. IS can reference PS Interoperable Standards are allowed to make normative references to Proposed Standards. The current rule prohibiting "down references" is a major cause of stickiness in the publication process. This change, in theory, allows an Interoperable Standard to reference features that have not been formally agreed to be demonstrably interoperable. But it is a matter of common sense - if we want to be able to promote Proposed Standard documents expeditiously, we have to allow this form of down reference. (Down references from an RFC to an Internet-Draft continue to be prohibited.) 7. The STD designation, and updates Presently, an STD designation and number is only given to a document (or document set) at the full Standard level. This can cause extreme confusion when a full Standard is technically obsoleted by a Proposed Standard. What is an implementer to do? One option is to simply abolish the STD designation, which is little used anyway. (The editor prefers to abolish STD on grounds that it eliminates needless process and is currently not often used; however, his view is not strongly held.) The alternative is to assign the STD designation (and number) to a document (or document set) at PS level; if a PS is promoted to IS, its STD number goes with it; if an IS is obsoleted by a PS, the STD number reverts to the PS. In any case, this function (assigning documents to specific STD designations) would be an IETF (WG or IESG) matter and not an RFC Editor action as today. 8. Transitional arrangements On the day these changes enter service, all existing Draft Standard and (Full) Standard RFCs would be automatically reclassified as Interoperable Standard RFCs. Corresponding changes would be made to the RFC Index and various features of the RFC Editor site and any other RFC repositories displaying the status of RFCs. If and only if the STD designation is retained, all existing STD designations will be applied as follows: 1. If the old Standard has not been obsoleted, it is now an IS with the same STD designation. Atkinson (Editor) Expires 22 July 2006 [Page 5] Internet-Draft Two stage 22 February 2006 2. If the old Standard has been obsoleted, the STD designation goes to the document(s) that obsoleted it, which may be PS, IS or a mixture. 3. If the old Standard has been updated, the STD designation is added to the document(s) that updated it, which may be PS, IS or a mixture. 4. The IESG would designate a team or teams to rapidly classify all PS and IS documents not assigned an STD designation by the above process into new STD designations. (If the STD designation is abolished, these steps would be unnecessary, but various cleanings up of the RFC Index and the RFC Editor web site would be needed to remove all references to STD.) 9. Not excluded The above changes have been constructed in such a way that they do not exclude the notions of WG Snapshots (drafts declared to be in a stable state by the WG), Stable Snapshots (drafts declared to be in a stable state with IESG agreement) or Internet Standards Documentation (ISDs, external descriptors of a set of RFCs as a single standard)[3]. This document has been written such that it neither requires nor prohibits other unrelated process changes to be made. 10. Initial Publication as Historic RFC An unrelated process clarification is that, occasionally, the IESG may decide to approve a document for immediate publication as Historic (rather than Informational), when it is desired to publish it for the record but the document's content is already overtaken by events. 10. Housekeeping Obviously, [1] will need considerable editing in addition to the above changes, for example to remove the intellectual property material which is already obsolete. Also, [4], which defined the STD designation, should be obsoleted. (Even if the STD designation is retained, it should be fully described in the replacement for [1].) 11. Security Considerations This document does not directly affect the security of the Internet. Atkinson (Editor) Expires 22 July 2006 [Page 6] Internet-Draft Two stage 22 February 2006 12. IANA Considerations Atkinson (Editor) Expires 22 July 2006 [Page 7] Internet-Draft Two stage 22 February 2006 This document requests no action by the IANA. 13. Acknowledgements The current editor proposed a two-stage standards track process to the IAB and IESG whilst he was serving on the IAB. At that time, the idea did not garner much support. Separately, a two-stage standards track proposal was made Spencer Dawkins, Charlie Perkins and Dave Crocker in 2003, which also contained a version of the WG Snapshot proposal. Another variant including Stable Snapshots was made by Scott Bradner in 2004. This draft was written by Brian Carpenter in June 2005. The current editor took over the draft in February 2006 with permission from Brian Carpenter. Comments on the Brian Carpenter's original draft by Spencer Dawkins are gratefully acknowledged. This document was originally produced using the xml2rfc tool[5], but the current editor is using nroff. 14. Informative References [1] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP-9, RFC-2026, October 1996. [2] Davies, E., "IETF Problem Statement", RFC-3774, May 2004. [3] Klensin, J. and J. Loughney, "Internet Standards Documentation (ISDs)", draft-ietf-newtrk-repurposing-isd-03 (work in progress), April 2005. [4] Postel, J., "Introduction to the STD Notes", RFC-1311, March 1992. [5] Rose, M., "Writing I-Ds and RFCs using XML", RFC-2629, June 1999. Atkinson (Editor) Expires 22 July 2006 [Page 8] Internet-Draft Two stage 22 February 2006 Author's Address Randall Atkinson Extreme Networks PO Box 14129 3306 East NC Highway 54, Suite 100 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 USA Email: rja@extremenetworks.com Atkinson (Editor) Expires 22 July 2006 [Page 9] Internet-Draft Two stage 22 February 2006 Intellectual Property Statement The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be found in BCP-78 and BCP-79. Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at http://www.ietf.org/ipr. The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at ietf-ipr@ietf.org. Disclaimer of Validity This document and the information contained herein are provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society 2006. This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP-78, and except as set forth therein, the author and editor retain all their rights. Acknowledgment Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society. Atkinson (Editor) Expires 22 July 2006 [Page 10] Internet-Draft Two stage 22 February 2006 Atkinson (Editor) Expires 22 July 2006 [Page 11]