Network Working Group J. Klensin Internet-Draft March 23, 2006 Expires: September 24, 2006 A Process Experiment in Normative Reference Handling draft-klensin-norm-ref-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. 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 September 24, 2006. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). Abstract The IETF and RFC Editor have a long-standing rule that a document at a given maturity level cannot be published until all documents it references as normative are at that maturity level or higher. This rule has sometimes resulted in very long publication delays for documents and some claims that it was a major obstruction to advancing documents in maturity level. The IETF agreed to a way to bypass this rule with RFC 3967. This document proposes a one-year process experiment in which the "hold on normative reference" rule will be replaced by a "note downward normative reference and move on" Klensin Expires September 24, 2006 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Normative References March 2006 approach. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.1. Documents Not Yet Processed by the IESG . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.2. Documents Already in RFC Editor Queue . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3. Discussion of Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 6. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 7. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 7 Klensin Expires September 24, 2006 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Normative References March 2006 1. Introduction The IETF and RFC Editor have a long-standing rule (see, e.g., RFC 2026, Section 4.2.4 [RFC2026] and the extended discussion in RFC 3967 [RFC3967]) that a document at a given maturity level cannot be published until all documents it references as normative are at that maturity level or higher. This rule has sometimes resulted in very long publication delays for documents and some claims that it was a major obstruction to advancing documents in maturity level. Recognizing the problems that rule sometimes caused, RFC 3967 established an exception procedure for normative downward references under some specific circumstances. Perhaps because of its fairly stringent requirements, RFC 3967 has not proven adequate either to clear the backlog of documents awaiting upgraded documents or to prevent additional documents from joining that queue. This document assumes that downward references are possible only to documents that are already published or approved for publication. While downward references to, e.g., Internet Drafts, are possible, they are not contemplated here. This document proposes a one-year process experiment in which the "hold on normative reference" rule will be replaced by a "note downward normative reference and move on" approach. 2. Proposal This document specifies a one-year RFC 3933 [RFC3933] process experiment (see the next section) that creates an alternative to holding documents until all documents referenced normatively are upgraded or by applying the procedure of RFC 3967. 2.1. Documents Not Yet Processed by the IESG An author or editor who requires a normative downward reference uses the following very simple procedure: o The reference text (i.e., in the "Normative References" section) is written as usual. o A note that indicates that the reference is to a document of a lower maturity level, that some caution should be used since it may be less stable than the document from which it is being referenced, and, optionally, explaining why the downward reference is appropriate. The IESG may, at its discretion, specify the exact text to be used. Klensin Expires September 24, 2006 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Normative References March 2006 These annotations are part of the document. If members of the community consider either the downward reference or the annotation text to be inappropriate, those issues can be raised at any time in the document life cycle, just as with any other text in the document. There is no separate review on these references. At the option of the author, similar notes may be attached to non- normative references. 2.2. Documents Already in RFC Editor Queue The IESG may, at its discretion, specify a procedure to be applied to documents that are already in the RFC Editor queue, awaiting referenced documents. That procedure might involve asking the RFC Editor to apply an appropriate annotation to all such documents, or to a selective list of documents. It might alternately involve the application of some additional review process to those documents, such as by directorates or other AD-appointed review committees, working group chairs, or appointed experts, each subject to appeal. That list of options is not intended to limit what the IESG might specify, but to give some indication of possibilities. While nothing in this document would prevent the IESG from concluding that each document now on hold for normative references should be put through an additional Last Call to eliminate the restriction, that decision would definitely not be in the spirit of the experiment proposed here. 3. Discussion of Experiment Several claims have been made about problems that are being caused by the "no downward references" rule. The number of documents waiting for lower-maturity documents in the RFC Editor queue is objective and easily-measured. But claims about how many documents would be completed and processed to higher maturity levels if the normative reference rule were eliminated are impossible to validate without this type of experiment. Consequently, this experiment should serve three purposes: 1. Prevent any new documents from entering the "hold for normative reference" queue unless there is an explicit decision made that doing so is desirable. 2. At the option of the IESG, and under rules it adopts, clear the RFC Editor's current "hold for normative reference" queue. 3. Permit the community to examine questions of how much effective elimination of the normative reference rule increases document throughput and the number of documents being advanced. Klensin Expires September 24, 2006 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Normative References March 2006 4. Security Considerations This document specifies an IETF procedure. It is not believed to raise any security issues although, in principle, relaxing the normative downward reference rules for references associated with security mechanisms could make a specification less stable and hence less secure. 5. IANA Considerations This document requires no actions by the IANA. 6. Acknowledgments This proposal was suggested by a comment by Spencer Dawkins and many complaints about the negative impact of the current rules. The author is unsure about the validity of some of those complaints; the proposal is, in part, a way to test the validity question. Spencer also provided helpful comments on a preliminary draft. 7. Normative References [RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996. [RFC3933] Klensin, J. and S. Dawkins, "A Model for IETF Process Experiments", BCP 93, RFC 3933, November 2004. [RFC3967] Bush, R. and T. Narten, "Clarifying when Standards Track Documents may Refer Normatively to Documents at a Lower Level", BCP 97, RFC 3967, December 2004. Klensin Expires September 24, 2006 [Page 5] Internet-Draft Normative References March 2006 Author's Address John C Klensin 1770 Massachusetts Ave, #322 Cambridge, MA 02140 USA Phone: +1 617 491 5735 Email: john-ietf@jck.com Klensin Expires September 24, 2006 [Page 6] Internet-Draft Normative References March 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. 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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 authors retain all their rights. Acknowledgment Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society. Klensin Expires September 24, 2006 [Page 7]