<- BCP Index (1..100)
(also RFC 2026, RFC 5657, RFC 6410, RFC 7100, RFC 7127, RFC 7475, RFC 8789, RFC 9282)
[Note that this file is a concatenation of more than one RFC.]
Network Working Group S. Bradner
Request for Comments: 2026 Harvard University
BCP: 9 October 1996
Obsoletes: 1602
Category: Best Current Practice
The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the
Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
This memo documents the process used by the Internet community for
the standardization of protocols and procedures. It defines the
stages in the standardization process, the requirements for moving a
document between stages and the types of documents used during this
process. It also addresses the intellectual property rights and
copyright issues associated with the standards process.
Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION....................................................2
1.1 Internet Standards...........................................3
1.2 The Internet Standards Process...............................3
1.3 Organization of This Document................................5
2. INTERNET STANDARDS-RELATED PUBLICATIONS.........................5
2.1 Requests for Comments (RFCs).................................5
2.2 Internet-Drafts..............................................7
3. INTERNET STANDARD SPECIFICATIONS................................8
3.1 Technical Specification (TS).................................8
3.2 Applicability Statement (AS).................................8
3.3 Requirement Levels...........................................9
4. THE INTERNET STANDARDS TRACK...................................10
4.1 Standards Track Maturity Levels.............................11
4.1.1 Proposed Standard.......................................11
4.1.2 Draft Standard..........................................12
4.1.3 Internet Standard.......................................13
4.2 Non-Standards Track Maturity Levels.........................13
4.2.1 Experimental............................................13
4.2.2 Informational...........................................14
4.2.3 Procedures for Experimental and Informational RFCs......14
4.2.4 Historic................................................15
Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 1]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996
5. Best Current Practice (BCP) RFCs...............................15
5.1 BCP Review Process..........................................16
6. THE INTERNET STANDARDS PROCESS.................................17
6.1 Standards Actions...........................................17
6.1.1 Initiation of Action....................................17
6.1.2 IESG Review and Approval................................17
6.1.3 Publication.............................................18
6.2 Advancing in the Standards Track............................19
6.3 Revising a Standard.........................................20
6.4 Retiring a Standard.........................................20
6.5 Conflict Resolution and Appeals.............................21
6.5.1 Working Group Disputes...................................21
6.5.2 Process Failures.........................................22
6.5.3 Questions of Applicable Procedure........................22
6.5.4 Appeals Procedure........................................23
7. EXTERNAL STANDARDS AND SPECIFICATIONS..........................23
7.1 Use of External Specifications..............................24
7.1.1 Incorporation of an Open Standard.......................24
7.1.2 Incorporation of a Other Specifications.................24
7.1.3 Assumption..............................................25
8. NOTICES AND RECORD KEEPING......................................25
9. VARYING THE PROCESS.............................................26
9.1 The Variance Procedure.......................................26
9.2 Exclusions...................................................27
10. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS..................................27
10.1. General Policy............................................27
10.2 Confidentiality Obligations...............................28
10.3. Rights and Permissions....................................28
10.3.1. All Contributions......................................28
10.3.2. Standards Track Documents..............................29
10.3.3 Determination of Reasonable and
Non-discriminatory Terms................................30
10.4. Notices...................................................30
11. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS................................................32
12. SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS........................................32
13. REFERENCES.....................................................33
14. DEFINITIONS OF TERMS...........................................33
15. AUTHOR'S ADDRESS...............................................34
APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS...................................35
Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 2]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 1. INTRODUCTION This memo documents the process currently used by the Internet community for the standardization of protocols and procedures. The Internet Standards process is an activity of the Internet Society that is organized and managed on behalf of the Internet community by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). 1.1 Internet Standards The Internet, a loosely-organized international collaboration of autonomous, interconnected networks, supports host-to-host communication through voluntary adherence to open protocols and procedures defined by Internet Standards. There are also many isolated interconnected networks, which are not connected to the global Internet but use the Internet Standards. The Internet Standards Process described in this document is concerned with all protocols, procedures, and conventions that are used in or by the Internet, whether or not they are part of the TCP/IP protocol suite. In the case of protocols developed and/or standardized by non-Internet organizations, however, the Internet Standards Process normally applies to the application of the protocol or procedure in the Internet context, not to the specification of the protocol itself. In general, an Internet Standard is a specification that is stable and well-understood, is technically competent, has multiple, independent, and interoperable implementations with substantial operational experience, enjoys significant public support, and is recognizably useful in some or all parts of the Internet. 1.2 The Internet Standards Process In outline, the process of creating an Internet Standard is straightforward: a specification undergoes a period of development and several iterations of review by the Internet community and revision based upon experience, is adopted as a Standard by the appropriate body (see below), and is published. In practice, the process is more complicated, due to (1) the difficulty of creating specifications of high technical quality; (2) the need to consider the interests of all of the affected parties; (3) the importance of establishing widespread community consensus; and (4) the difficulty of evaluating the utility of a particular specification for the Internet community. Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 3]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996
The goals of the Internet Standards Process are:
o technical excellence;
o prior implementation and testing;
o clear, concise, and easily understood documentation;
o openness and fairness; and
o timeliness.
The procedures described in this document are designed to be fair,
open, and objective; to reflect existing (proven) practice; and to
be flexible.
o These procedures are intended to provide a fair, open, and
objective basis for developing, evaluating, and adopting Internet
Standards. They provide ample opportunity for participation and
comment by all interested parties. At each stage of the
standardization process, a specification is repeatedly discussed
and its merits debated in open meetings and/or public electronic
mailing lists, and it is made available for review via world-wide
on-line directories.
o These procedures are explicitly aimed at recognizing and adopting
generally-accepted practices. Thus, a candidate specification
must be implemented and tested for correct operation and
interoperability by multiple independent parties and utilized in
increasingly demanding environments, before it can be adopted as
an Internet Standard.
o These procedures provide a great deal of flexibility to adapt to
the wide variety of circumstances that occur in the
standardization process. Experience has shown this flexibility to
be vital in achieving the goals listed above.
The goal of technical competence, the requirement for prior
implementation and testing, and the need to allow all interested
parties to comment all require significant time and effort. On the
other hand, today's rapid development of networking technology
demands timely development of standards. The Internet Standards
Process is intended to balance these conflicting goals. The process
is believed to be as short and simple as possible without sacrificing
technical excellence, thorough testing before adoption of a standard,
or openness and fairness.
From its inception, the Internet has been, and is expected to remain,
an evolving system whose participants regularly factor new
requirements and technology into its design and implementation. Users
of the Internet and providers of the equipment, software, and
services that support it should anticipate and embrace this evolution
as a major tenet of Internet philosophy.
Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 4]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 The procedures described in this document are the result of a number of years of evolution, driven both by the needs of the growing and increasingly diverse Internet community, and by experience. Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 5]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 1.3 Organization of This Document Section 2 describes the publications and archives of the Internet Standards Process. Section 3 describes the types of Internet standard specifications. Section 4 describes the Internet standards specifications track. Section 5 describes Best Current Practice RFCs. Section 6 describes the process and rules for Internet standardization. Section 7 specifies the way in which externally- sponsored specifications and practices, developed and controlled by other standards bodies or by others, are handled within the Internet Standards Process. Section 8 describes the requirements for notices and record keeping Section 9 defines a variance process to allow one-time exceptions to some of the requirements in this document Section 10 presents the rules that are required to protect intellectual property rights in the context of the development and use of Internet Standards. Section 11 includes acknowledgments of some of the people involved in creation of this document. Section 12 notes that security issues are not dealt with by this document. Section 13 contains a list of numbered references. Section 14 contains definitions of some of the terms used in this document. Section 15 lists the author's email and postal addresses. Appendix A contains a list of frequently-used acronyms. 2. INTERNET STANDARDS-RELATED PUBLICATIONS 2.1 Requests for Comments (RFCs) Each distinct version of an Internet standards-related specification is published as part of the "Request for Comments" (RFC) document series. This archival series is the official publication channel for Internet standards documents and other publications of the IESG, IAB, and Internet community. RFCs can be obtained from a number of Internet hosts using anonymous FTP, gopher, World Wide Web, and other Internet document-retrieval systems. The RFC series of documents on networking began in 1969 as part of the original ARPA wide-area networking (ARPANET) project (see Appendix A for glossary of acronyms). RFCs cover a wide range of topics in addition to Internet Standards, from early discussion of new research concepts to status memos about the Internet. RFC publication is the direct responsibility of the RFC Editor, under the general direction of the IAB. Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 6]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996
The rules for formatting and submitting an RFC are defined in [5].
Every RFC is available in ASCII text. Some RFCs are also available
in other formats. The other versions of an RFC may contain material
(such as diagrams and figures) that is not present in the ASCII
version, and it may be formatted differently.
*********************************************************
* *
* A stricter requirement applies to standards-track *
* specifications: the ASCII text version is the *
* definitive reference, and therefore it must be a *
* complete and accurate specification of the standard, *
* including all necessary diagrams and illustrations. *
* *
*********************************************************
The status of Internet protocol and service specifications is
summarized periodically in an RFC entitled "Internet Official
Protocol Standards" [1]. This RFC shows the level of maturity and
other helpful information for each Internet protocol or service
specification (see section 3).
Some RFCs document Internet Standards. These RFCs form the 'STD'
subseries of the RFC series [4]. When a specification has been
adopted as an Internet Standard, it is given the additional label
"STDxxx", but it keeps its RFC number and its place in the RFC
series. (see section 4.1.3)
Some RFCs standardize the results of community deliberations about
statements of principle or conclusions about what is the best way to
perform some operations or IETF process function. These RFCs form
the specification has been adopted as a BCP, it is given the
additional label "BCPxxx", but it keeps its RFC number and its place
in the RFC series. (see section 5)
Not all specifications of protocols or services for the Internet
should or will become Internet Standards or BCPs. Such non-standards
track specifications are not subject to the rules for Internet
standardization. Non-standards track specifications may be published
directly as "Experimental" or "Informational" RFCs at the discretion
of the RFC Editor in consultation with the IESG (see section 4.2).
Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 7]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996
********************************************************
* *
* It is important to remember that not all RFCs *
* are standards track documents, and that not all *
* standards track documents reach the level of *
* Internet Standard. In the same way, not all RFCs *
* which describe current practices have been given *
* the review and approval to become BCPs. See *
* RFC-1796 [6] for further information. *
* *
********************************************************
2.2 Internet-Drafts
During the development of a specification, draft versions of the
document are made available for informal review and comment by
placing them in the IETF's "Internet-Drafts" directory, which is
replicated on a number of Internet hosts. This makes an evolving
working document readily available to a wide audience, facilitating
the process of review and revision.
An Internet-Draft that is published as an RFC, or that has remained
unchanged in the Internet-Drafts directory for more than six months
without being recommended by the IESG for publication as an RFC, is
simply removed from the Internet-Drafts directory. At any time, an
Internet-Draft may be replaced by a more recent version of the same
specification, restarting the six-month timeout period.
An Internet-Draft is NOT a means of "publishing" a specification;
specifications are published through the RFC mechanism described in
the previous section. Internet-Drafts have no formal status, and are
subject to change or removal at any time.
********************************************************
* *
* Under no circumstances should an Internet-Draft *
* be referenced by any paper, report, or Request- *
* for-Proposal, nor should a vendor claim compliance *
* with an Internet-Draft. *
* *
********************************************************
Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 8]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 Note: It is acceptable to reference a standards-track specification that may reasonably be expected to be published as an RFC using the phrase "Work in Progress" without referencing an Internet-Draft. This may also be done in a standards track document itself as long as the specification in which the reference is made would stand as a complete and understandable document with or without the reference to the "Work in Progress". 3. INTERNET STANDARD SPECIFICATIONS Specifications subject to the Internet Standards Process fall into one of two categories: Technical Specification (TS) and Applicability Statement (AS). 3.1 Technical Specification (TS) A Technical Specification is any description of a protocol, service, procedure, convention, or format. It may completely describe all of the relevant aspects of its subject, or it may leave one or more parameters or options unspecified. A TS may be completely self- contained, or it may incorporate material from other specifications by reference to other documents (which might or might not be Internet Standards). A TS shall include a statement of its scope and the general intent for its use (domain of applicability). Thus, a TS that is inherently specific to a particular context shall contain a statement to that effect. However, a TS does not specify requirements for its use within the Internet; these requirements, which depend on the particular context in which the TS is incorporated by different system configurations, are defined by an Applicability Statement. 3.2 Applicability Statement (AS) An Applicability Statement specifies how, and under what circumstances, one or more TSs may be applied to support a particular Internet capability. An AS may specify uses for TSs that are not Internet Standards, as discussed in Section 7. An AS identifies the relevant TSs and the specific way in which they are to be combined, and may also specify particular values or ranges of TS parameters or subfunctions of a TS protocol that must be implemented. An AS also specifies the circumstances in which the use of a particular TS is required, recommended, or elective (see section 3.3). Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 9]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996
An AS may describe particular methods of using a TS in a restricted
"domain of applicability", such as Internet routers, terminal
servers, Internet systems that interface to Ethernets, or datagram-
based database servers.
The broadest type of AS is a comprehensive conformance specification,
commonly called a "requirements document", for a particular class of
Internet systems, such as Internet routers or Internet hosts.
An AS may not have a higher maturity level in the standards track
than any standards-track TS on which the AS relies (see section 4.1).
For example, a TS at Draft Standard level may be referenced by an AS
at the Proposed Standard or Draft Standard level, but not by an AS at
the Standard level.
3.3 Requirement Levels
An AS shall apply one of the following "requirement levels" to each
of the TSs to which it refers:
(a) Required: Implementation of the referenced TS, as specified by
the AS, is required to achieve minimal conformance. For example,
IP and ICMP must be implemented by all Internet systems using the
TCP/IP Protocol Suite.
(b) Recommended: Implementation of the referenced TS is not
required for minimal conformance, but experience and/or generally
accepted technical wisdom suggest its desirability in the domain
of applicability of the AS. Vendors are strongly encouraged to
include the functions, features, and protocols of Recommended TSs
in their products, and should omit them only if the omission is
justified by some special circumstance. For example, the TELNET
protocol should be implemented by all systems that would benefit
from remote access.
(c) Elective: Implementation of the referenced TS is optional
within the domain of applicability of the AS; that is, the AS
creates no explicit necessity to apply the TS. However, a
particular vendor may decide to implement it, or a particular user
may decide that it is a necessity in a specific environment. For
example, the DECNET MIB could be seen as valuable in an
environment where the DECNET protocol is used.
Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 10]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996
As noted in section 4.1, there are TSs that are not in the
standards track or that have been retired from the standards
track, and are therefore not required, recommended, or elective.
Two additional "requirement level" designations are available for
these TSs:
(d) Limited Use: The TS is considered to be appropriate for use
only in limited or unique circumstances. For example, the usage
of a protocol with the "Experimental" designation should generally
be limited to those actively involved with the experiment.
(e) Not Recommended: A TS that is considered to be inappropriate
for general use is labeled "Not Recommended". This may be because
of its limited functionality, specialized nature, or historic
status.
Although TSs and ASs are conceptually separate, in practice a
standards-track document may combine an AS and one or more related
TSs. For example, Technical Specifications that are developed
specifically and exclusively for some particular domain of
applicability, e.g., for mail server hosts, often contain within a
single specification all of the relevant AS and TS information. In
such cases, no useful purpose would be served by deliberately
distributing the information among several documents just to preserve
the formal AS/TS distinction. However, a TS that is likely to apply
to more than one domain of applicability should be developed in a
modular fashion, to facilitate its incorporation by multiple ASs.
The "Official Protocol Standards" RFC (STD1) lists a general
requirement level for each TS, using the nomenclature defined in this
section. This RFC is updated periodically. In many cases, more
detailed descriptions of the requirement levels of particular
protocols and of individual features of the protocols will be found
in appropriate ASs.
4. THE INTERNET STANDARDS TRACK
Specifications that are intended to become Internet Standards evolve
through a set of maturity levels known as the "standards track".
These maturity levels -- "Proposed Standard", "Draft Standard", and
"Standard" -- are defined and discussed in section 4.1. The way in
which specifications move along the standards track is described in
section 6.
Even after a specification has been adopted as an Internet Standard,
further evolution often occurs based on experience and the
recognition of new requirements. The nomenclature and procedures of
Internet standardization provide for the replacement of old Internet
Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 11]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 Standards with new ones, and the assignment of descriptive labels to indicate the status of "retired" Internet Standards. A set of maturity levels is defined in section 4.2 to cover these and other specifications that are not considered to be on the standards track. 4.1 Standards Track Maturity Levels Internet specifications go through stages of development, testing, and acceptance. Within the Internet Standards Process, these stages are formally labeled "maturity levels". This section describes the maturity levels and the expected characteristics of specifications at each level. 4.1.1 Proposed Standard The entry-level maturity for the standards track is "Proposed Standard". A specific action by the IESG is required to move a specification onto the standards track at the "Proposed Standard" level. A Proposed Standard specification is generally stable, has resolved known design choices, is believed to be well-understood, has received significant community review, and appears to enjoy enough community interest to be considered valuable. However, further experience might result in a change or even retraction of the specification before it advances. Usually, neither implementation nor operational experience is required for the designation of a specification as a Proposed Standard. However, such experience is highly desirable, and will usually represent a strong argument in favor of a Proposed Standard designation. The IESG may require implementation and/or operational experience prior to granting Proposed Standard status to a specification that materially affects the core Internet protocols or that specifies behavior that may have significant operational impact on the Internet. A Proposed Standard should have no known technical omissions with respect to the requirements placed upon it. However, the IESG may waive this requirement in order to allow a specification to advance to the Proposed Standard state when it is considered to be useful and necessary (and timely) even with known technical omissions. Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 12]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 Implementors should treat Proposed Standards as immature specifications. It is desirable to implement them in order to gain experience and to validate, test, and clarify the specification. However, since the content of Proposed Standards may be changed if problems are found or better solutions are identified, deploying implementations of such standards into a disruption-sensitive environment is not recommended. 4.1.2 Draft Standard A specification from which at least two independent and interoperable implementations from different code bases have been developed, and for which sufficient successful operational experience has been obtained, may be elevated to the "Draft Standard" level. For the purposes of this section, "interoperable" means to be functionally equivalent or interchangeable components of the system or process in which they are used. If patented or otherwise controlled technology is required for implementation, the separate implementations must also have resulted from separate exercise of the licensing process. Elevation to Draft Standard is a major advance in status, indicating a strong belief that the specification is mature and will be useful. 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. The Working Group chair is responsible for documenting the specific implementations which qualify the specification for Draft or Internet Standard status along with documentation about testing of the interoperation of these implementations. The documentation must include information about the support of each of the individual options and features. This documentation should be submitted to the Area Director with the protocol action request. (see Section 6) A Draft Standard must be well-understood and known to be quite stable, both in its semantics and as a basis for developing an implementation. A Draft Standard may still require additional or more widespread field experience, since it is possible for implementations based on Draft Standard specifications to demonstrate unforeseen behavior when subjected to large-scale use in production environments. Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 13]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 A Draft Standard is normally considered to be a final specification, and changes are likely to be made only to solve specific problems encountered. In most circumstances, it is reasonable for vendors to deploy implementations of Draft Standards into a disruption sensitive environment. 4.1.3 Internet Standard A specification for which significant implementation and successful operational experience has been obtained may be elevated to the Internet Standard level. An Internet Standard (which may simply be referred to as a Standard) is characterized by a high degree of technical maturity and by a generally held belief that the specified protocol or service provides significant benefit to the Internet community. A specification that reaches the status of Standard is assigned a number in the STD series while retaining its RFC number. 4.2 Non-Standards Track Maturity Levels Not every specification is on the standards track. A specification may not be intended to be an Internet Standard, or it may be intended for eventual standardization but not yet ready to enter the standards track. A specification may have been superseded by a more recent Internet Standard, or have otherwise fallen into disuse or disfavor. Specifications that are not on the standards track are labeled with one of three "off-track" maturity levels: "Experimental", "Informational", or "Historic". The documents bearing these labels are not Internet Standards in any sense. 4.2.1 Experimental The "Experimental" designation typically denotes a specification that is part of some research or development effort. Such a specification is published for the general information of the Internet technical community and as an archival record of the work, subject only to editorial considerations and to verification that there has been adequate coordination with the standards process (see below). An Experimental specification may be the output of an organized Internet research effort (e.g., a Research Group of the IRTF), an IETF Working Group, or it may be an individual contribution. Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 14]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 4.2.2 Informational An "Informational" specification is published for the general information of the Internet community, and does not represent an Internet community consensus or recommendation. The Informational designation is intended to provide for the timely publication of a very broad range of responsible informational documents from many sources, subject only to editorial considerations and to verification that there has been adequate coordination with the standards process (see section 4.2.3). Specifications that have been prepared outside of the Internet community and are not incorporated into the Internet Standards Process by any of the provisions of section 10 may be published as Informational RFCs, with the permission of the owner and the concurrence of the RFC Editor. 4.2.3 Procedures for Experimental and Informational RFCs Unless they are the result of IETF Working Group action, documents intended to be published with Experimental or Informational status should be submitted directly to the RFC Editor. The RFC Editor will publish any such documents as Internet-Drafts which have not already been so published. In order to differentiate these Internet-Drafts they will be labeled or grouped in the I-D directory so they are easily recognizable. The RFC Editor will wait two weeks after this publication for comments before proceeding further. The RFC Editor is expected to exercise his or her judgment concerning the editorial suitability of a document for publication with Experimental or Informational status, and may refuse to publish a document which, in the expert opinion of the RFC Editor, is unrelated to Internet activity or falls below the technical and/or editorial standard for RFCs. To ensure that the non-standards track Experimental and Informational designations are not misused to circumvent the Internet Standards Process, the IESG and the RFC Editor have agreed that the RFC Editor will refer to the IESG any document submitted for Experimental or Informational publication which, in the opinion of the RFC Editor, may be related to work being done, or expected to be done, within the IETF community. The IESG shall review such a referred document within a reasonable period of time, and recommend either that it be published as originally submitted or referred to the IETF as a contribution to the Internet Standards Process. If (a) the IESG recommends that the document be brought within the IETF and progressed within the IETF context, but the author declines to do so, or (b) the IESG considers that the document proposes Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 15]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 something that conflicts with, or is actually inimical to, an established IETF effort, the document may still be published as an Experimental or Informational RFC. In these cases, however, the IESG may insert appropriate "disclaimer" text into the RFC either in or immediately following the "Status of this Memo" section in order to make the circumstances of its publication clear to readers. Documents proposed for Experimental and Informational RFCs by IETF Working Groups go through IESG review. The review is initiated using the process described in section 6.1.1. 4.2.4 Historic A specification that has been superseded by a more recent specification or is for any other reason considered to be obsolete is assigned to the "Historic" level. (Purists have suggested that the word should be "Historical"; however, at this point the use of "Historic" is historical.) Note: Standards track specifications normally must not depend on other standards track specifications which are at a lower maturity level or on non standards track specifications other than referenced specifications from other standards bodies. (See Section 7.) 5. BEST CURRENT PRACTICE (BCP) RFCs The BCP subseries of the RFC series is designed to be a way to standardize practices and the results of community deliberations. A BCP document is subject to the same basic set of procedures as standards track documents and thus is a vehicle by which the IETF community can define and ratify the community's best current thinking on a statement of principle or on what is believed to be the best way to perform some operations or IETF process function. Historically Internet standards have generally been concerned with the technical specifications for hardware and software required for computer communication across interconnected networks. However, since the Internet itself is composed of networks operated by a great variety of organizations, with diverse goals and rules, good user service requires that the operators and administrators of the Internet follow some common guidelines for policies and operations. While these guidelines are generally different in scope and style from protocol standards, their establishment needs a similar process for consensus building. While it is recognized that entities such as the IAB and IESG are composed of individuals who may participate, as individuals, in the technical work of the IETF, it is also recognized that the entities Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 16]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 themselves have an existence as leaders in the community. As leaders in the Internet technical community, these entities should have an outlet to propose ideas to stimulate work in a particular area, to raise the community's sensitivity to a certain issue, to make a statement of architectural principle, or to communicate their thoughts on other matters. The BCP subseries creates a smoothly structured way for these management entities to insert proposals into the consensus-building machinery of the IETF while gauging the community's view of that issue. Finally, the BCP series may be used to document the operation of the IETF itself. For example, this document defines the IETF Standards Process and is published as a BCP. 5.1 BCP Review Process Unlike standards-track documents, the mechanisms described in BCPs are not well suited to the phased roll-in nature of the three stage standards track and instead generally only make sense for full and immediate instantiation. The BCP process is similar to that for proposed standards. The BCP is submitted to the IESG for review, (see section 6.1.1) and the existing review process applies, including a Last-Call on the IETF Announce mailing list. However, once the IESG has approved the document, the process ends and the document is published. The resulting document is viewed as having the technical approval of the IETF. Specifically, a document to be considered for the status of BCP must undergo the procedures outlined in sections 6.1, and 6.4 of this document. The BCP process may be appealed according to the procedures in section 6.5. Because BCPs are meant to express community consensus but are arrived at more quickly than standards, BCPs require particular care. Specifically, BCPs should not be viewed simply as stronger Informational RFCs, but rather should be viewed as documents suitable for a content different from Informational RFCs. A specification, or group of specifications, that has, or have been approved as a BCP is assigned a number in the BCP series while retaining its RFC number(s). Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 17]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 6. THE INTERNET STANDARDS PROCESS The mechanics of the Internet Standards Process involve decisions of the IESG concerning the elevation of a specification onto the standards track or the movement of a standards-track specification from one maturity level to another. Although a number of reasonably objective criteria (described below and in section 4) are available to guide the IESG in making a decision to move a specification onto, along, or off the standards track, there is no algorithmic guarantee of elevation to or progression along the standards track for any specification. The experienced collective judgment of the IESG concerning the technical quality of a specification proposed for elevation to or advancement in the standards track is an essential component of the decision-making process. 6.1 Standards Actions A "standards action" -- entering a particular specification into, advancing it within, or removing it from, the standards track -- must be approved by the IESG. 6.1.1 Initiation of Action A specification that is intended to enter or advance in the Internet standards track shall first be posted as an Internet-Draft (see section 2.2) unless it has not changed since publication as an RFC. It shall remain as an Internet-Draft for a period of time, not less than two weeks, that permits useful community review, after which a recommendation for action may be initiated. A standards action is initiated by a recommendation by the IETF Working group responsible for a specification to its Area Director, copied to the IETF Secretariat or, in the case of a specification not associated with a Working Group, a recommendation by an individual to the IESG. 6.1.2 IESG Review and Approval The IESG shall determine whether or not a specification submitted to it according to section 6.1.1 satisfies the applicable criteria for the recommended action (see sections 4.1 and 4.2), and shall in addition determine whether or not the technical quality and clarity of the specification is consistent with that expected for the maturity level to which the specification is recommended. In order to obtain all of the information necessary to make these determinations, particularly when the specification is considered by the IESG to be extremely important in terms of its potential impact Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 18]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 on the Internet or on the suite of Internet protocols, the IESG may, at its discretion, commission an independent technical review of the specification. The IESG will send notice to the IETF of the pending IESG consideration of the document(s) to permit a final review by the general Internet community. This "Last-Call" notification shall be via electronic mail to the IETF Announce mailing list. Comments on a Last-Call shall be accepted from anyone, and should be sent as directed in the Last-Call announcement. The Last-Call period shall be no shorter than two weeks except in those cases where the proposed standards action was not initiated by an IETF Working Group, in which case the Last-Call period shall be no shorter than four weeks. If the IESG believes that the community interest would be served by allowing more time for comment, it may decide on a longer Last-Call period or to explicitly lengthen a current Last-Call period. The IESG is not bound by the action recommended when the specification was submitted. For example, the IESG may decide to consider the specification for publication in a different category than that requested. If the IESG determines this before the Last- Call is issued then the Last-Call should reflect the IESG's view. The IESG could also decide to change the publication category based on the response to a Last-Call. If this decision would result in a specification being published at a "higher" level than the original Last-Call was for, a new Last-Call should be issued indicating the IESG recommendation. In addition, the IESG may decide to recommend the formation of a new Working Group in the case of significant controversy in response to a Last-Call for specification not originating from an IETF Working Group. In a timely fashion after the expiration of the Last-Call period, the IESG shall make its final determination of whether or not to approve the standards action, and shall notify the IETF of its decision via electronic mail to the IETF Announce mailing list. 6.1.3 Publication If a standards action is approved, notification is sent to the RFC Editor and copied to the IETF with instructions to publish the specification as an RFC. The specification shall at that point be removed from the Internet-Drafts directory. Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 19]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 An official summary of standards actions completed and pending shall appear in each issue of the Internet Society's newsletter. This shall constitute the "publication of record" for Internet standards actions. The RFC Editor shall publish periodically an "Internet Official Protocol Standards" RFC [1], summarizing the status of all Internet protocol and service specifications. 6.2 Advancing in the Standards Track The procedure described in section 6.1 is followed for each action that attends the advancement of a specification along the standards track. A specification shall remain at the Proposed Standard level for at least six (6) months. A specification shall remain at the Draft Standard level for at least four (4) months, or until at least one IETF meeting has occurred, whichever comes later. These minimum periods are intended to ensure adequate opportunity for community review without severely impacting timeliness. These intervals shall be measured from the date of publication of the corresponding RFC(s), or, if the action does not result in RFC publication, the date of the announcement of the IESG approval of the action. A specification may be (indeed, is likely to be) revised as it advances through the standards track. At each stage, the IESG shall determine the scope and significance of the revision to the specification, and, if necessary and appropriate, modify the recommended action. Minor revisions are expected, but a significant revision may require that the specification accumulate more experience at its current maturity level before progressing. Finally, if the specification has been changed very significantly, the IESG may recommend that the revision be treated as a new document, re- entering the standards track at the beginning. Change of status shall result in republication of the specification as an RFC, except in the rare case that there have been no changes at all in the specification since the last publication. Generally, desired changes will be "batched" for incorporation at the next level in the standards track. However, deferral of changes to the next standards action on the specification will not always be possible or desirable; for example, an important typographical error, or a technical error that does not represent a change in overall function Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 20]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 of the specification, may need to be corrected immediately. In such cases, the IESG or RFC Editor may be asked to republish the RFC (with a new number) with corrections, and this will not reset the minimum time-at-level clock. When a standards-track specification has not reached the Internet Standard level but has remained at the same maturity level for twenty-four (24) months, and every twelve (12) months thereafter until the status is changed, the IESG shall review the viability of the standardization effort responsible for that specification and the usefulness of the technology. Following each such review, the IESG shall approve termination or continuation of the development effort, at the same time the IESG shall decide to maintain the specification at the same maturity level or to move it to Historic status. This decision shall be communicated to the IETF by electronic mail to the IETF Announce mailing list to allow the Internet community an opportunity to comment. This provision is not intended to threaten a legitimate and active Working Group effort, but rather to provide an administrative mechanism for terminating a moribund effort. 6.3 Revising a Standard A new version of an established Internet Standard must progress through the full Internet standardization process as if it were a completely new specification. Once the new version has reached the Standard level, it will usually replace the previous version, which will be moved to Historic status. However, in some cases both versions may remain as Internet Standards to honor the requirements of an installed base. In this situation, the relationship between the previous and the new versions must be explicitly stated in the text of the new version or in another appropriate document (e.g., an Applicability Statement; see section 3.2). 6.4 Retiring a Standard As the technology changes and matures, it is possible for a new Standard specification to be so clearly superior technically that one or more existing standards track specifications for the same function should be retired. In this case, or when it is felt for some other reason that an existing standards track specification should be retired, the IESG shall approve a change of status of the old specification(s) to Historic. This recommendation shall be issued with the same Last-Call and notification procedures used for any other standards action. A request to retire an existing standard can originate from a Working Group, an Area Director or some other interested party. Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 21]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 6.5 Conflict Resolution and Appeals Disputes are possible at various stages during the IETF process. As much as possible the process is designed so that compromises can be made, and genuine consensus achieved, however there are times when even the most reasonable and knowledgeable people are unable to agree. To achieve the goals of openness and fairness, such conflicts must be resolved by a process of open review and discussion. This section specifies the procedures that shall be followed to deal with Internet standards issues that cannot be resolved through the normal processes whereby IETF Working Groups and other Internet Standards Process participants ordinarily reach consensus. 6.5.1 Working Group Disputes An individual (whether a participant in the relevant Working Group or not) may disagree with a Working Group recommendation based on his or her belief that either (a) his or her own views have not been adequately considered by the Working Group, or (b) the Working Group has made an incorrect technical choice which places the quality and/or integrity of the Working Group's product(s) in significant jeopardy. The first issue is a difficulty with Working Group process; the latter is an assertion of technical error. These two types of disagreement are quite different, but both are handled by the same process of review. A person who disagrees with a Working Group recommendation shall always first discuss the matter with the Working Group's chair(s), who may involve other members of the Working Group (or the Working Group as a whole) in the discussion. If the disagreement cannot be resolved in this way, any of the parties involved may bring it to the attention of the Area Director(s) for the area in which the Working Group is chartered. The Area Director(s) shall attempt to resolve the dispute. If the disagreement cannot be resolved by the Area Director(s) any of the parties involved may then appeal to the IESG as a whole. The IESG shall then review the situation and attempt to resolve it in a manner of its own choosing. If the disagreement is not resolved to the satisfaction of the parties at the IESG level, any of the parties involved may appeal the decision to the IAB. The IAB shall then review the situation and attempt to resolve it in a manner of its own choosing. Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 22]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 The IAB decision is final with respect to the question of whether or not the Internet standards procedures have been followed and with respect to all questions of technical merit. 6.5.2 Process Failures This document sets forward procedures required to be followed to ensure openness and fairness of the Internet Standards Process, and the technical viability of the standards created. The IESG is the principal agent of the IETF for this purpose, and it is the IESG that is charged with ensuring that the required procedures have been followed, and that any necessary prerequisites to a standards action have been met. If an individual should disagree with an action taken by the IESG in this process, that person should first discuss the issue with the ISEG Chair. If the IESG Chair is unable to satisfy the complainant then the IESG as a whole should re-examine the action taken, along with input from the complainant, and determine whether any further action is needed. The IESG shall issue a report on its review of the complaint to the IETF. Should the complainant not be satisfied with the outcome of the IESG review, an appeal may be lodged to the IAB. The IAB shall then review the situation and attempt to resolve it in a manner of its own choosing and report to the IETF on the outcome of its review. If circumstances warrant, the IAB may direct that an IESG decision be annulled, and the situation shall then be as it was before the IESG decision was taken. The IAB may also recommend an action to the IESG, or make such other recommendations as it deems fit. The IAB may not, however, pre-empt the role of the IESG by issuing a decision which only the IESG is empowered to make. The IAB decision is final with respect to the question of whether or not the Internet standards procedures have been followed. 6.5.3 Questions of Applicable Procedure Further recourse is available only in cases in which the procedures themselves (i.e., the procedures described in this document) are claimed to be inadequate or insufficient to the protection of the rights of all parties in a fair and open Internet Standards Process. Claims on this basis may be made to the Internet Society Board of Trustees. The President of the Internet Society shall acknowledge such an appeal within two weeks, and shall at the time of acknowledgment advise the petitioner of the expected duration of the Trustees' review of the appeal. The Trustees shall review the Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 23]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996
situation in a manner of its own choosing and report to the IETF on
the outcome of its review.
The Trustees' decision upon completion of their review shall be final
with respect to all aspects of the dispute.
6.5.4 Appeals Procedure
All appeals must include a detailed and specific description of the
facts of the dispute.
All appeals must be initiated within two months of the public
knowledge of the action or decision to be challenged.
At all stages of the appeals process, the individuals or bodies
responsible for making the decisions have the discretion to define
the specific procedures they will follow in the process of making
their decision.
In all cases a decision concerning the disposition of the dispute,
and the communication of that decision to the parties involved, must
be accomplished within a reasonable period of time.
[NOTE: These procedures intentionally and explicitly do not
establish a fixed maximum time period that shall be considered
"reasonable" in all cases. The Internet Standards Process places a
premium on consensus and efforts to achieve it, and deliberately
foregoes deterministically swift execution of procedures in favor of
a latitude within which more genuine technical agreements may be
reached.]
7. EXTERNAL STANDARDS AND SPECIFICATIONS
Many standards groups other than the IETF create and publish
standards documents for network protocols and services. When these
external specifications play an important role in the Internet, it is
desirable to reach common agreements on their usage -- i.e., to
establish Internet Standards relating to these external
specifications.
There are two categories of external specifications:
(1) Open Standards
Various national and international standards bodies, such as ANSI,
ISO, IEEE, and ITU-T, develop a variety of protocol and service
specifications that are similar to Technical Specifications
defined here. National and international groups also publish
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"implementors' agreements" that are analogous to Applicability
Statements, capturing a body of implementation-specific detail
concerned with the practical application of their standards. All
of these are considered to be "open external standards" for the
purposes of the Internet Standards Process.
(2) Other Specifications
Other proprietary specifications that have come to be widely used
in the Internet may be treated by the Internet community as if
they were a "standards". Such a specification is not generally
developed in an open fashion, is typically proprietary, and is
controlled by the vendor, vendors, or organization that produced
it.
7.1 Use of External Specifications
To avoid conflict between competing versions of a specification, the
Internet community will not standardize a specification that is
simply an "Internet version" of an existing external specification
unless an explicit cooperative arrangement to do so has been made.
However, there are several ways in which an external specification
that is important for the operation and/or evolution of the Internet
may be adopted for Internet use.
7.1.1 Incorporation of an Open Standard
An Internet Standard TS or AS may incorporate an open external
standard by reference. For example, many Internet Standards
incorporate by reference the ANSI standard character set "ASCII" [2].
Whenever possible, the referenced specification shall be available
online.
7.1.2 Incorporation of Other Specifications
Other proprietary specifications may be incorporated by reference to
a version of the specification as long as the proprietor meets the
requirements of section 10. If the other proprietary specification
is not widely and readily available, the IESG may request that it be
published as an Informational RFC.
The IESG generally should not favor a particular proprietary
specification over technically equivalent and competing
specification(s) by making any incorporated vendor specification
"required" or "recommended".
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7.1.3 Assumption
An IETF Working Group may start from an external specification and
develop it into an Internet specification. This is acceptable if (1)
the specification is provided to the Working Group in compliance with
the requirements of section 10, and (2) change control has been
conveyed to IETF by the original developer of the specification for
the specification or for specifications derived from the original
specification.
8. NOTICES AND RECORD KEEPING
Each of the organizations involved in the development and approval of
Internet Standards shall publicly announce, and shall maintain a
publicly accessible record of, every activity in which it engages, to
the extent that the activity represents the prosecution of any part
of the Internet Standards Process. For purposes of this section, the
organizations involved in the development and approval of Internet
Standards includes the IETF, the IESG, the IAB, all IETF Working
Groups, and the Internet Society Board of Trustees.
For IETF and Working Group meetings announcements shall be made by
electronic mail to the IETF Announce mailing list and shall be made
sufficiently far in advance of the activity to permit all interested
parties to effectively participate. The announcement shall contain
(or provide pointers to) all of the information that is necessary to
support the participation of any interested individual. In the case
of a meeting, for example, the announcement shall include an agenda
that specifies the standards- related issues that will be discussed.
The formal record of an organization's standards-related activity
shall include at least the following:
o the charter of the organization (or a defining document equivalent
to a charter);
o complete and accurate minutes of meetings;
o the archives of Working Group electronic mail mailing lists; and
o all written contributions from participants that pertain to the
organization's standards-related activity.
As a practical matter, the formal record of all Internet Standards
Process activities is maintained by the IETF Secretariat, and is the
responsibility of the IETF Secretariat except that each IETF Working
Group is expected to maintain their own email list archive and must
make a best effort to ensure that all traffic is captured and
included in the archives. Also, the Working Group chair is
responsible for providing the IETF Secretariat with complete and
accurate minutes of all Working Group meetings. Internet-Drafts that
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RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 have been removed (for any reason) from the Internet-Drafts directories shall be archived by the IETF Secretariat for the sole purpose of preserving an historical record of Internet standards activity and thus are not retrievable except in special circumstances. 9. VARYING THE PROCESS This document, which sets out the rules and procedures by which Internet Standards and related documents are made is itself a product of the Internet Standards Process (as a BCP, as described in section 5). It replaces a previous version, and in time, is likely itself to be replaced. While, when published, this document represents the community's view of the proper and correct process to follow, and requirements to be met, to allow for the best possible Internet Standards and BCPs, it cannot be assumed that this will always remain the case. From time to time there may be a desire to update it, by replacing it with a new version. Updating this document uses the same open procedures as are used for any other BCP. In addition, there may be situations where following the procedures leads to a deadlock about a specific specification, or there may be situations where the procedures provide no guidance. In these cases it may be appropriate to invoke the variance procedure described below. 9.1 The Variance Procedure Upon the recommendation of the responsible IETF Working Group (or, if no Working Group is constituted, upon the recommendation of an ad hoc committee), the IESG may enter a particular specification into, or advance it within, the standards track even though some of the requirements of this document have not or will not be met. The IESG may approve such a variance, however, only if it first determines that the likely benefits to the Internet community are likely to outweigh any costs to the Internet community that result from noncompliance with the requirements in this document. In exercising this discretion, the IESG shall at least consider (a) the technical merit of the specification, (b) the possibility of achieving the goals of the Internet Standards Process without granting a variance, (c) alternatives to the granting of a variance, (d) the collateral and precedential effects of granting a variance, and (e) the IESG's ability to craft a variance that is as narrow as possible. In determining whether to approve a variance, the IESG has discretion to limit the scope of the variance to particular parts of this document and to impose such additional restrictions or limitations as it Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 27]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996 determines appropriate to protect the interests of the Internet community. The proposed variance must detail the problem perceived, explain the precise provision of this document which is causing the need for a variance, and the results of the IESG's considerations including consideration of points (a) through (d) in the previous paragraph. The proposed variance shall be issued as an Internet Draft. The IESG shall then issue an extended Last-Call, of no less than 4 weeks, to allow for community comment upon the proposal. In a timely fashion after the expiration of the Last-Call period, the IESG shall make its final determination of whether or not to approve the proposed variance, and shall notify the IETF of its decision via electronic mail to the IETF Announce mailing list. If the variance is approved it shall be forwarded to the RFC Editor with a request that it be published as a BCP. This variance procedure is for use when a one-time waving of some provision of this document is felt to be required. Permanent changes to this document shall be accomplished through the normal BCP process. The appeals process in section 6.5 applies to this process. 9.2 Exclusions No use of this procedure may lower any specified delays, nor exempt any proposal from the requirements of openness, fairness, or consensus, nor from the need to keep proper records of the meetings and mailing list discussions. Specifically, the following sections of this document must not be subject of a variance: 5.1, 6.1, 6.1.1 (first paragraph), 6.1.2, 6.3 (first sentence), 6.5 and 9. 10. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS 10.1. General Policy In all matters of intellectual property rights and procedures, the intention is to benefit the Internet community and the public at large, while respecting the legitimate rights of others. Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 28]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996
10.2 Confidentiality Obligations
No contribution that is subject to any requirement of confidentiality
or any restriction on its dissemination may be considered in any part
of the Internet Standards Process, and there must be no assumption of
any confidentiality obligation with respect to any such contribution.
10.3. Rights and Permissions
In the course of standards work, the IETF receives contributions in
various forms and from many persons. To best facilitate the
dissemination of these contributions, it is necessary to understand
any intellectual property rights (IPR) relating to the contributions.
10.3.1. All Contributions
By submission of a contribution, each person actually submitting the
contribution is deemed to agree to the following terms and conditions
on his own behalf, on behalf of the organization (if any) he
represents and on behalf of the owners of any propriety rights in the
contribution.. Where a submission identifies contributors in
addition to the contributor(s) who provide the actual submission, the
actual submitter(s) represent that each other named contributor was
made aware of and agreed to accept the same terms and conditions on
his own behalf, on behalf of any organization he may represent and
any known owner of any proprietary rights in the contribution.
l. Some works (e.g. works of the U.S. Government) are not subject to
copyright. However, to the extent that the submission is or may
be subject to copyright, the contributor, the organization he
represents (if any) and the owners of any proprietary rights in
the contribution, grant an unlimited perpetual, non-exclusive,
royalty-free, world-wide right and license to the ISOC and the
IETF under any copyrights in the contribution. This license
includes the right to copy, publish and distribute the
contribution in any way, and to prepare derivative works that are
based on or incorporate all or part of the contribution, the
license to such derivative works to be of the same scope as the
license of the original contribution.
2. The contributor acknowledges that the ISOC and IETF have no duty
to publish or otherwise use or disseminate any contribution.
3. The contributor grants permission to reference the name(s) and
address(es) of the contributor(s) and of the organization(s) he
represents (if any).
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4. The contributor represents that contribution properly acknowledge
major contributors.
5. The contribuitor, the organization (if any) he represents and the
owners of any proprietary rights in the contribution, agree that
no information in the contribution is confidential and that the
ISOC and its affiliated organizations may freely disclose any
information in the contribution.
6. The contributor represents that he has disclosed the existence of
any proprietary or intellectual property rights in the
contribution that are reasonably and personally known to the
contributor. The contributor does not represent that he
personally knows of all potentially pertinent proprietary and
intellectual property rights owned or claimed by the organization
he represents (if any) or third parties.
7. The contributor represents that there are no limits to the
contributor's ability to make the grants acknowledgments and
agreements above that are reasonably and personally known to the
contributor.
By ratifying this description of the IETF process the Internet
Society warrants that it will not inhibit the traditional open and
free access to IETF documents for which license and right have
been assigned according to the procedures set forth in this
section, including Internet-Drafts and RFCs. This warrant is
perpetual and will not be revoked by the Internet Society or its
successors or assigns.
10.3.2. Standards Track Documents
(A) Where any patents, patent applications, or other proprietary
rights are known, or claimed, with respect to any specification on
the standards track, and brought to the attention of the IESG, the
IESG shall not advance the specification without including in the
document a note indicating the existence of such rights, or
claimed rights. Where implementations are required before
advancement of a specification, only implementations that have, by
statement of the implementors, taken adequate steps to comply with
any such rights, or claimed rights, shall be considered for the
purpose of showing the adequacy of the specification.
(B) The IESG disclaims any responsibility for identifying the
existence of or for evaluating the applicability of any claimed
copyrights, patents, patent applications, or other rights in the
fulfilling of the its obligations under (A), and will take no
position on the validity or scope of any such rights.
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(C) Where the IESG knows of rights, or claimed rights under (A), the
IETF Executive Director shall attempt to obtain from the claimant
of such rights, a written assurance that upon approval by the IESG
of the relevant Internet standards track specification(s), any
party will be able to obtain the right to implement, use and
distribute the technology or works when implementing, using or
distributing technology based upon the specific specification(s)
under openly specified, reasonable, non-discriminatory terms.
The Working Group proposing the use of the technology with respect
to which the proprietary rights are claimed may assist the IETF
Executive Director in this effort. The results of this procedure
shall not affect advancement of a specification along the
standards track, except that the IESG may defer approval where a
delay may facilitate the obtaining of such assurances. The
results will, however, be recorded by the IETF Executive Director,
and made available. The IESG may also direct that a summary of
the results be included in any RFC published containing the
specification.
10.3.3 Determination of Reasonable and Non-discriminatory Terms
The IESG will not make any explicit determination that the assurance
of reasonable and non-discriminatory terms for the use of a
technology has been fulfilled in practice. It will instead use the
normal requirements for the advancement of Internet Standards to
verify that the terms for use are reasonable. If the two unrelated
implementations of the specification that are required to advance
from Proposed Standard to Draft Standard have been produced by
different organizations or individuals or if the "significant
implementation and successful operational experience" required to
advance from Draft Standard to Standard has been achieved the
assumption is that the terms must be reasonable and to some degree,
non-discriminatory. This assumption may be challenged during the
Last-Call period.
10.4. Notices
(A) Standards track documents shall include the following notice:
"The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of
any intellectual property 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; neither does
it represent that it has made any effort to identify any such
rights. Information on the IETF's procedures with respect to
rights in standards-track and standards-related documentation
can be found in BCP-11. Copies of claims of rights made
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RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996
available for publication 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 implementors or users of this
specification can be obtained from the IETF Secretariat."
(B) The IETF encourages all interested parties to bring to its
attention, at the earliest possible time, the existence of any
intellectual property rights pertaining to Internet Standards.
For this purpose, each standards document shall include the
following invitation:
"The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its
attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or
other proprietary rights which may cover technology that may be
required to practice this standard. Please address the
information to the IETF Executive Director."
(C) The following copyright notice and disclaimer shall be included
in all ISOC standards-related documentation:
"Copyright (C) The Internet Society (date). All Rights
Reserved.
This document and translations of it may be copied and
furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or
otherwise explain it or assist in its implmentation may be
prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in
part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above
copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such
copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may
not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright
notice or references to the Internet Society or other Internet
organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights
defined in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or
as required to translate it into languages other than English.
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will
not be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or
assigns.
Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 32]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996
This document and the information contained herein is provided
on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET
ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS 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."
(D) Where the IESG is aware at the time of publication of
proprietary rights claimed with respect to a standards track
document, or the technology described or referenced therein, such
document shall contain the following notice:
"The IETF has been notified of intellectual property rights
claimed in regard to some or all of the specification contained
in this document. For more information consult the online list
of claimed rights."
11. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There have been a number of people involved with the development of
the documents defining the IETF Standards Process over the years.
The process was first described in RFC 1310 then revised in RFC 1602
before the current effort (which relies heavily on its predecessors).
Specific acknowledgments must be extended to Lyman Chapin, Phill
Gross and Christian Huitema as the editors of the previous versions,
to Jon Postel and Dave Crocker for their inputs to those versions, to
Andy Ireland, Geoff Stewart, Jim Lampert, and Dick Holleman for their
reviews of the legal aspects of the procedures described herein, and
to John Stewart, Robert Elz and Steve Coya for their extensive input
on the final version.
In addition much of the credit for the refinement of the details of
the IETF processes belongs to the many members of the various
incarnations of the POISED Working Group.
12. SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
Security issues are not discussed in this memo.
Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 33]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996
13. REFERENCES
[1] Postel, J., "Internet Official Protocol Standards", STD 1,
USC/Information Sciences Institute, March 1996.
[2] ANSI, Coded Character Set -- 7-Bit American Standard Code for
Information Interchange, ANSI X3.4-1986.
[3] Reynolds, J., and J. Postel, "Assigned Numbers", STD 2,
USC/Information Sciences Institute, October 1994.
[4] Postel, J., "Introduction to the STD Notes", RFC 1311,
USC/Information Sciences Institute, March 1992.
[5] Postel, J., "Instructions to RFC Authors", RFC 1543,
USC/Information Sciences Institute, October 1993.
[6] Huitema, C., J. Postel, and S. Crocker "Not All RFCs are
Standards", RFC 1796, April 1995.
14. DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
IETF Area - A management division within the IETF. An Area consists
of Working Groups related to a general topic such as routing. An
Area is managed by one or two Area Directors.
Area Director - The manager of an IETF Area. The Area Directors
along with the IETF Chair comprise the Internet Engineering
Steering Group (IESG).
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) - An Internet application used to
transfer files in a TCP/IP network.
gopher - An Internet application used to interactively select and
retrieve files in a TCP/IP network.
Internet Architecture Board (IAB) - An appointed group that assists
in the management of the IETF standards process.
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) - A group comprised of the
IETF Area Directors and the IETF Chair. The IESG is responsible
for the management, along with the IAB, of the IETF and is the
standards approval board for the IETF.
interoperable - For the purposes of this document, "interoperable"
means to be able to interoperate over a data communications path.
Last-Call - A public comment period used to gage the level of
consensus about the reasonableness of a proposed standards action.
(see section 6.1.2)
Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 34]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996
online - Relating to information made available over the Internet.
When referenced in this document material is said to be online
when it is retrievable without restriction or undue fee using
standard Internet applications such as anonymous FTP, gopher or
the WWW.
Working Group - A group chartered by the IESG and IAB to work on a
specific specification, set of specifications or topic.
15. AUTHOR'S ADDRESS
Scott O. Bradner
Harvard University
Holyoke Center, Room 813
1350 Mass. Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02138
USA
Phone: +1 617 495 3864
EMail: sob@harvard.edu
Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 35]
RFC 2026 Internet Standards Process October 1996
APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS
ANSI: American National Standards Institute
ARPA: (U.S.) Advanced Research Projects Agency
AS: Applicability Statement
FTP: File Transfer Protocol
ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Interchange
ITU-T: Telecommunications Standardization sector of the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN
treaty organization; ITU-T was formerly called CCITT.
IAB: Internet Architecture Board
IANA: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
IEEE: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
ICMP: Internet Control Message Protocol
IESG: Internet Engineering Steering Group
IETF: Internet Engineering Task Force
IP: Internet Protocol
IRSG Internet Research Steering Group
IRTF: Internet Research Task Force
ISO: International Organization for Standardization
ISOC: Internet Society
MIB: Management Information Base
OSI: Open Systems Interconnection
RFC: Request for Comments
TCP: Transmission Control Protocol
TS: Technical Specification
WWW: World Wide Web
Bradner Best Current Practice [Page 36]
Network Working Group L. Dusseault
Request for Comments: 5657 Messaging Architects
BCP: 9 R. Sparks
Updates: 2026 Tekelec
Category: Best Current Practice September 2009
Guidance on Interoperation and Implementation Reports
for Advancement to Draft Standard
Abstract
Advancing a protocol to Draft Standard requires documentation of the
interoperation and implementation of the protocol. Historic reports
have varied widely in form and level of content and there is little
guidance available to new report preparers. This document updates
the existing processes and provides more detail on what is
appropriate in an interoperability and implementation report.
Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the
Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright and License Notice
Copyright (c) 2009 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the BSD License.
Dusseault & Sparks Best Current Practice [Page 1]
RFC 5657 Implementation Report Guidance September 2009
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
2. Content Requirements ............................................4
3. Format ..........................................................5
4. Feature Coverage ................................................6
5. Special Cases ...................................................8
5.1. Deployed Protocols .........................................8
5.2. Undeployed Protocols .......................................8
5.3. Schemas, Languages, and Formats ............................8
5.4. Multiple Contributors, Multiple Implementation Reports .....9
5.5. Test Suites ................................................9
5.6. Optional Features, Extensibility Features .................10
6. Examples .......................................................10
6.1. Minimal Implementation Report .............................11
6.2. Covering Exceptions .......................................11
7. Security Considerations ........................................11
8. References .....................................................12
8.1. Normative References ......................................12
8.2. Informative References ....................................12
1. Introduction
The Draft Standard level, and requirements for standards to meet it,
are described in [RFC2026]. For Draft Standard, not only must two
implementations interoperate, but also documentation (the report)
must be provided to the IETF. The entire paragraph covering this
documentation reads:
The Working Group chair is responsible for documenting the
specific implementations which qualify the specification for Draft
or Internet Standard status along with documentation about testing
of the interoperation of these implementations. The documentation
must include information about the support of each of the
individual options and features. This documentation should be
submitted to the Area Director with the protocol action request.
(see Section 6)
Moving documents along the standards track can be an important signal
to the user and implementor communities, and the process of
submitting a standard for advancement can help improve that standard
or the quality of implementations that participate. However, the
barriers seem to be high for advancement to Draft Standard, or at the
very least confusing. This memo may help in guiding people through
one part of advancing specifications to Draft Standard. It also
changes some of the requirements made in RFC 2026 in ways that are
intended to maintain or improve the quality of reports while reducing
the burden of creating them.
Dusseault & Sparks Best Current Practice [Page 2]
RFC 5657 Implementation Report Guidance September 2009 Having and demonstrating sufficient interoperability is a gating requirement for advancing a protocol to Draft Standard. Thus, the primary goal of an implementation report is to convince the IETF and the IESG that the protocol is ready for Draft Standard. This goal can be met by summarizing the interoperability characteristics and by providing just enough detail to support that conclusion. Side benefits may accrue to the community creating the report in the form of bugs found or fixed in tested implementations, documentation that can help future implementors, or ideas for other documents or future revisions of the protocol being tested. Different kinds of documentation are appropriate for widely deployed standards than for standards that are not yet deployed. Different test approaches are appropriate for standards that are not typical protocols: languages, formats, schemas, etc. This memo discusses how reports for these standards may vary in Section 5. Implementation should naturally focus on the final version of the RFC. If there's any evidence that implementations are interoperating based on Internet-Drafts or earlier versions of the specification, or if interoperability was greatly aided by mailing list clarifications, this should be noted in the report. The level of detail in reports accepted in the past has varied widely. An example of a submitted report that is not sufficient for demonstrating interoperability is (in its entirety): "A partial list of implementations include: Cray SGI Netstar IBM HP Network Systems Convex". This report does not state how it is known that these implementations interoperate (was it through public lab testing? internal lab testing? deployment?). Nor does it capture whether implementors are aware of, or were asked about, any features that proved to be problematic. At a different extreme, reports have been submitted that contain a great amount of detail about the test methodology, but relatively little information about what worked and what failed to work. This memo is intended to clarify what an implementation report should contain and to suggest a reasonable form for most implementation reports. It is not intended to rule out good ideas. For example, this memo can't take into account all process variations such as documents going to Draft Standard twice, nor can it consider all types of standards. Whenever the situation varies significantly from what's described here, the IESG uses judgement in determining whether an implementation report meets the goals above. The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119]. Dusseault & Sparks Best Current Practice [Page 3]
RFC 5657 Implementation Report Guidance September 2009
2. Content Requirements
The implementation report MUST identify the author of the report, who
is responsible for characterizing the interoperability quality of the
protocol. The report MAY identify other contributors (testers, those
who answered surveys, or those who contributed information) to share
credit or blame. The report MAY provide a list of report reviewers
who corroborate the characterization of interoperability quality, or
name an active working group (WG) that reviewed the report.
Some of the requirements of RFC 2026 are relaxed with this update:
o The report MAY name exactly which implementations were tested. A
requirement to name implementations was implied by the description
of the responsibility for "documenting the specific
implementations" in RFC 2026. However, note that usually
identifying implementations will help meet the goals of
implementation reports. If a subset of implementations was tested
or surveyed, it would also help to explain how that subset was
chosen or self-selected. See also the note on implementation
independence below.
o The report author MAY choose an appropriate level of detail to
document feature interoperability, rather than document each
individual feature. See note on granularity of features below.
o A contributor other than a WG chair MAY submit an implementation
report to an Area Director (AD).
o Optional features that are not implemented, but are important and
do not harm interoperability, MAY, exceptionally and with approval
of the IESG, be left in a protocol at Draft Standard. See
Section 5.6 for documentation requirements and an example of where
this is needed.
Note: Independence of implementations is mentioned in the RFC 2026
requirements for Draft Standard status. Independent
implementations should be written by different people at
different organizations using different code and protocol
libraries. If it's necessary to relax this definition, it can
be relaxed as long as there is evidence to show that success is
due more to the quality of the protocol than to out-of-band
understandings or common code. If there are only two
implementations of an undeployed protocol, the report SHOULD
identify the implementations and their "genealogy" (which
libraries were used or where the codebase came from). If there
are many more implementations, or the protocol is in broad
deployment, it is not necessary to call out which two of the
Dusseault & Sparks Best Current Practice [Page 4]
RFC 5657 Implementation Report Guidance September 2009
implementations demonstrated interoperability of each given
feature -- a reader may conclude that at least some of the
implementations of that feature are independent.
Note: The granularity of features described in a specification is
necessarily very detailed. In contrast, the granularity of an
implementation report need not be as detailed. A report need
not list every "MAY", "SHOULD", and "MUST" in a complete matrix
across implementations. A more effective approach might be to
characterize the interoperability quality and testing approach,
then call out any known problems in either testing or
interoperability.
3. Format
The format of implementation and interoperability reports MUST be
ASCII text with line breaks for readability. As with Internet-
Drafts, no 8-bit characters are currently allowed. It is acceptable,
but not necessary, for a report to be formatted as an Internet-Draft.
Here is a simple outline that an implementation report MAY follow in
part or in full:
Title: Titles of implementation reports are strongly RECOMMENDED to
contain one or more RFC number for consistent lookup in a simple
archive. In addition, the name or a common mnemonic of the
standard should be in the title. An example might look like
"Implementation Report for the Example Name of Some Protocol
(ENSP) RFC XXXX".
Author: Identify the author of the report.
Summary: Attest that the standard meets the requirements for Draft
Standard and name who is attesting it. Describe how many
implementations were tested or surveyed. Quickly characterize the
deployment level and where the standard can be found in
deployment. Call out, and if possible, briefly describe any
notably difficult or poorly interoperable features and explain why
these still meet the requirement. Assert any derivative
conclusions: if a high-level system is tested and shown to work,
then we may conclude that the normative requirements of that
system (all sub-system or lower-layer protocols, to the extent
that a range of features is used) have also been shown to work.
Methodology: Describe how the information in the report was
obtained. This should be no longer than the summary.
Dusseault & Sparks Best Current Practice [Page 5]
RFC 5657 Implementation Report Guidance September 2009
Exceptions: This section might read "Every feature was implemented,
tested, and widely interoperable without exception and without
question". If that statement is not true, then this section
should cover whether any features were thought to be problematic.
Problematic features need not disqualify a protocol from Draft
Standard, but this section should explain why they do not (e.g.,
optional, untestable, trace, or extension features). See the
example in Section 6.2.
Detail sections: Any other justifying or background information can
be included here. In particular, any information that would have
made the summary or methodology sections more than a few
paragraphs long may be created as a detail section and referenced.
In this section, it would be good to discuss how the various
considerations sections played out. Were the security
considerations accurate and dealt with appropriately in
implementations? Was real internationalization experience found
among the tested implementations? Did the implementations have
any common monitoring or management functionality (although note
that documenting the interoperability of a management standard
might be separate from documenting the interoperability of the
protocol itself)? Did the IANA registries or registrations, if
any, work as intended?
Appendix sections: It's not necessary to archive test material such
as test suites, test documents, questionnaire text, or
questionnaire responses. However, if it's easy to preserve this
information, appendix sections allow readers to skip over it if
they are not interested. Preserving detailed test information can
help people doing similar or follow-on implementation reports, and
can also help new implementors.
4. Feature Coverage
What constitutes a "feature" for the purposes of an interoperability
report has been frequently debated. Good judgement is required in
finding a level of detail that adequately demonstrates coverage of
the requirements. Statements made at too high a level will result in
a document that can't be verified and hasn't adequately challenged
that the testing accidentally missed an important failure to
interoperate. On the other hand, statements at too fine a level
result in an exponentially exploding matrix of requirement
interaction that overburdens the testers and report writers. The
important information in the resulting report would likely be hard to
find in the sea of detail, making it difficult to evaluate whether
the important points of interoperability have been addressed.
Dusseault & Sparks Best Current Practice [Page 6]
RFC 5657 Implementation Report Guidance September 2009
The best interoperability reports will organize statements of
interoperability at a level of detail just sufficient to convince the
reader that testing has covered the full set of requirements and in
particular that the testing was sufficient to uncover any places
where interoperability does not exist. Reports similar to that for
RTP/RTCP (an excerpt appears below) are more useful than an
exhaustive checklist of every normative statement in the
specification.
10. Interoperable exchange of receiver report packets.
o PASS: Many implementations, tested UCL rat with vat,
Cisco IP/TV with vat/vic.
11. Interoperable exchange of receiver report packets when
not receiving data (ie: the empty receiver report
which has to be sent first in each compound RTCP packet
when no-participants are transmitting data).
o PASS: Many implementations, tested UCL rat with vat,
Cisco IP/TV with vat/vic.
...
8. Interoperable transport of RTP via TCP using the
encapsulation defined in the audio/video profile
o FAIL: no known implementations. This has been
removed from the audio/video profile.
Excerpts from
http://www.ietf.org/iesg/implementation/report-avt-rtp-rtcp.txt
Consensus can be a good tool to help determine the appropriate level
for such feature descriptions. A working group can make a strong
statement by documenting its consensus that a report sufficiently
covers a specification and that interoperability has been
demonstrated.
Dusseault & Sparks Best Current Practice [Page 7]
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5. Special Cases
5.1. Deployed Protocols
When a protocol is deployed, results obtained from laboratory testing
are not as useful to the IETF as learning what is actually working in
deployment. To this end, it may be more informative to survey
implementors or operators. A questionnaire or interview can elicit
information from a wider number of sources. As long as it is known
that independent implementations can work in deployment, it is more
useful to discover what problems exist, rather than gather long and
detailed checklists of features and options.
5.2. Undeployed Protocols
It is appropriate to provide finer-grained detail in reports for
protocols that do not yet have a wealth of experience gained through
deployment. In particular, some complicated, flexible or powerful
features might show interoperability problems when testers start to
probe outside the core use cases. RFC 2026 requires "sufficient
successful operational experience" before progressing a standard to
Draft, and notes that:
Draft Standard may still require additional or more widespread
field experience, since it is possible for implementations based
on Draft Standard specifications to demonstrate unforeseen
behavior when subjected to large-scale use in production
environments.
When possible, reports for protocols without much deployment
experience should anticipate common operational considerations. For
example, it would be appropriate to put additional emphasis on
overload or congestion management features the protocol may have.
5.3. Schemas, Languages, and Formats
Standards that are not on-the-wire protocols may be special cases for
implementation reports. The IESG SHOULD use judgement in what kind
of implementation information is acceptable for these kinds of
standards. ABNF (RFC 4234) is an example of a language for which an
implementation report was filed: it is interoperable in that
protocols are specified using ABNF and these protocols can be
successfully implemented and syntax verified. Implementations of
ABNF include the RFCs that use it as well as ABNF checking software.
Management Information Base (MIB, [RFC3410]) modules are sometimes
documented in implementation reports, and examples of that can be
found in the archive of implementation reports.
Dusseault & Sparks Best Current Practice [Page 8]
RFC 5657 Implementation Report Guidance September 2009
The interoperability reporting requirements for some classes of
documents may be discussed in separate documents. See [METRICSTEST]
for example.
5.4. Multiple Contributors, Multiple Implementation Reports
If it's easiest to divide up the work of implementation reports by
implementation, the result -- multiple implementation reports -- MAY
be submitted to the sponsoring Area Director one-by-one. Each report
might cover one implementation, including:
identification of the implementation;
an affirmation that the implementation works in testing (or
better, in deployment);
whether any features are known to interoperate poorly with other
implementations;
which optional or required features are not implemented (note that
there are no protocol police to punish this disclosure, we should
instead thank implementors who point out unimplemented or
unimplementable features especially if they can explain why); and
who is submitting this report for this implementation.
These SHOULD be collated into one document for archiving under one
title, but can be concatenated trivially even if the result has
several summary sections or introductions.
5.5. Test Suites
Some automated tests, such as automated test clients, do not test
interoperability directly. When specialized test implementations are
necessary, tests can at least be constructed from real-world protocol
or document examples. For example:
- ABNF [RFC4234] itself was tested by combining real-world examples
-- uses of ABNF found in well-known RFCs -- and feeding those
real-world examples into ABNF checkers. As the well-known RFCs
were themselves interoperable and in broad deployment, this served
as both a deployment proof and an interoperability proof.
[RFC4234] progressed from Proposed Standard through Draft Standard
to Standard and is obsoleted by [RFC5234].
Dusseault & Sparks Best Current Practice [Page 9]
RFC 5657 Implementation Report Guidance September 2009
- Atom [RFC4287] clients might be tested by finding that they
consistently display the information in a test Atom feed,
constructed from real-world examples that cover all the required
and optional features.
- MIB modules can be tested with generic MIB browsers, to confirm
that different implementations return the same values for objects
under similar conditions.
As a counter-example, the automated WWW Distributed Authoring and
Versioning (WebDAV) test client Litmus
(http://www.webdav.org/neon/litmus/) is of limited use in
demonstrating interoperability for WebDAV because it tests
completeness of server implementations and simple test cases. It
does not test real-world use or whether any real WebDAV clients
implement a feature properly or at all.
5.6. Optional Features, Extensibility Features
Optional features need not be shown to be implemented everywhere.
However, they do need to be implemented somewhere, and more than one
independent implementation is required. If an optional feature does
not meet this requirement, the implementation report must say so and
explain why the feature must be kept anyway versus being evidence of
a poor-quality standard.
Extensibility points and versioning features are particularly likely
to need this kind of treatment. When a protocol version 1 is
released, the protocol version field itself is likely to be unused.
Before any other versions exist, it can't really be demonstrated that
this particular field or option is implemented.
6. Examples
Some good, extremely brief, examples of implementation reports can be
found in the archives:
http://www.ietf.org/iesg/implementation/report-ppp-lcp-ext.html
http://www.ietf.org/iesg/implementation/report-otp.html
In some cases, perfectly good implementation reports are longer than
necessary, but may preserve helpful information:
http://www.ietf.org/iesg/implementation/report-rfc2329.txt
http://www.ietf.org/iesg/implementation/report-rfc4234.txt
Dusseault & Sparks Best Current Practice [Page 10]
RFC 5657 Implementation Report Guidance September 2009
6.1. Minimal Implementation Report
A large number of SMTP implementations support SMTP pipelining,
including: (1) Innosoft's PMDF and Sun's SIMS. (2) ISODE/
MessagingDirect's PP. (3) ISOCOR's nPlex. (4) software.com's
post.office. (5) Zmailer. (6) Smail. (7) The SMTP server in
Windows 2000. SMTP pipelining has been widely deployed in these
and other implementations for some time, and there have been no
reported interoperability problems.
This implementation report can also be found at
http://www.ietf.org//iesg/implementation/report-smtp-pipelining.txt
but the entire report is already reproduced above. Since SMTP
pipelining had no interoperability problems, the implementation
report was able to provide all the key information in a very terse
format. The reader can infer from the different vendors and
platforms that the codebases must, by and in large, be independent.
This implementation report would only be slightly improved by a
positive affirmation that there have been probes or investigations
asking about interoperability problems rather than merely a lack of
problem reports, and by stating who provided this summary report.
6.2. Covering Exceptions
The RFC2821bis (SMTP) implementation survey asked implementors what
features were not implemented. The VRFY and EXPN commands showed up
frequently in the responses as not implemented or disabled. That
implementation report might have followed the advice in this
document, had it already existed, by justifying the interoperability
of those features up front or in an "exceptions" section if the
outline defined in this memo were used:
VRFY and EXPN commands are often not implemented or are disabled.
This does not pose an interoperability problem for SMTP because
EXPN is an optional features and its support is never relied on.
VRFY is required, but in practice it is not relied on because
servers can legitimately reply with a non-response. These
commands should remain in the standard because they are sometimes
used by administrators within a domain under controlled
circumstances (e.g. authenticated query from within the domain).
Thus, the occasional utility argues for keeping these features,
while the lack of problems for end-users means that the
interoperability of SMTP in real use is not in the least degraded.
7. Security Considerations
This memo introduces no new security considerations.
Dusseault & Sparks Best Current Practice [Page 11]
RFC 5657 Implementation Report Guidance September 2009
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
8.2. Informative References
[METRICSTEST] Bradner, S. and V. Paxson, "Advancement of metrics
specifications on the IETF Standards Track", Work
in Progress, July 2007.
[RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process --
Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996.
[RFC3410] Case, J., Mundy, R., Partain, D., and B. Stewart,
"Introduction and Applicability Statements for
Internet-Standard Management Framework", RFC 3410,
December 2002.
[RFC4234] Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for
Syntax Specifications: ABNF", RFC 4234, October 2005.
[RFC4287] Nottingham, M., Ed. and R. Sayre, Ed., "The Atom
Syndication Format", RFC 4287, December 2005.
[RFC5234] Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008.
Authors' Addresses
Lisa Dusseault
Messaging Architects
EMail: lisa.dusseault@gmail.com
Robert Sparks
Tekelec
17210 Campbell Road
Suite 250
Dallas, Texas 75254-4203
USA
EMail: RjS@nostrum.com
Dusseault & Sparks Best Current Practice [Page 12]
=========================================================================
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) R. Housley
Request for Comments: 6410 Vigil Security
BCP: 9 D. Crocker
Updates: 2026 Brandenburg InternetWorking
Category: Best Current Practice E. Burger
ISSN: 2070-1721 Georgetown University
October 2011
Reducing the Standards Track to Two Maturity Levels
Abstract
This document updates the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Standards Process defined in RFC 2026. Primarily, it reduces the
Standards Process from three Standards Track maturity levels to two.
Status of This Memo
This memo documents an Internet Best Current Practice.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
BCPs is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6410.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Housley, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 1]
RFC 6410 Standards Track Maturity Levels October 2011
1. Introduction
This document changes the Internet Standards Process defined in RFC
2026 [1]. In recent years, the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF) witnessed difficulty advancing documents through the maturity
levels: Proposed Standard, Draft Standard, and finally Standard.
These changes are designed to simplify the Standards Process and
reduce impediments to standards progression while preserving the most
important benefits of the IETF engineering approach. In addition,
the requirement for annual review of Standards Track documents that
have not reached the top of the maturity ladder is removed from the
Internet Standards Process.
Over the years, there have been many proposals for refining the
Internet Standards Process to reduce impediments to standards
progression. During May 2010, the Internet Engineering Steering
Group (IESG) discussed many of these proposals. Then, a plenary
discussion at IETF 78 in July 2010 demonstrated significant support
for transition from a three-tier maturity ladder to one with two
tiers.
In the Internet Standards Process, experience with a Proposed
Standard is expected to motivate revisions that clarify, modify,
enhance, or remove features. However, in recent years, the vast
majority of Standards Track documents are published as Proposed
Standards and never advance to a higher maturity level. Very few
specifications have advanced on the maturity ladder in the last
decade. Changing the Internet Standards Process from three maturity
levels to two is intended to create an environment where lessons from
implementation and deployment experience are used to improve
specifications.
The primary aspect of this change is to revise the requirements for
advancement beyond Proposed Standard. RFC 2026 [1] requires a report
that documents interoperability between at least two implementations
from different code bases as an interim step ("Draft Standard")
before a specification can be advanced further to the third and final
maturity level ("Standard") based on widespread deployment and use.
In contrast, this document requires measuring interoperability
through widespread deployment of multiple implementations from
different code bases, thus condensing the two separate metrics into
one.
The result of this change is expected to be maturity-level
advancement based on achieving widespread deployment of quality
specifications. Additionally, the change will result in the
incorporation of lessons from implementation and deployment
Housley, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 2]
RFC 6410 Standards Track Maturity Levels October 2011 experience, and recognition that protocols are improved by removing complexity associated with unused features. In RFC 2026 [1], widespread deployment is essentially the metric used for advancement from Draft Standard to Standard. The use of this same metric for advancement beyond Proposed Standard means that there is no longer a useful distinction between the top two tiers of the maturity ladder. Thus, the maturity ladder is reduced to two tiers. In addition, RFC 2026 [1] requires annual review of specifications that have not achieved the top maturity level. This review is no longer required. 2. Two Maturity Levels This document replaces the three-tier maturity ladder defined in RFC 2026 [1] with a two-tier maturity ladder. Specifications become Internet Standards through a set of two maturity levels known as the "Standards Track". These maturity levels are "Proposed Standard" and "Internet Standard". A specification may be, and indeed, is likely to be, revised as it advances from Proposed Standard to Internet Standard. When a revised specification is proposed for advancement to Internet Standard, the IESG shall determine the scope and significance of the changes to the specification, and, if necessary and appropriate, modify the recommended action. Minor revisions and the removal of unused features are expected, but a significant revision may require that the specification accumulate more experience at Proposed Standard before progressing. 2.1. The First Maturity Level: Proposed Standard The stated requirements for Proposed Standard are not changed; they remain exactly as specified in RFC 2026 [1]. No new requirements are introduced; no existing published requirements are relaxed. 2.2. The Second Maturity Level: Internet Standard This maturity level is a merger of Draft Standard and Standard as specified in RFC 2026 [1]. The chosen name avoids confusion between "Draft Standard" and "Internet-Draft". Housley, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 3]
RFC 6410 Standards Track Maturity Levels October 2011
The characterization of an Internet Standard remains as described in
RFC 2026 [1], which says:
An Internet Standard is characterized by a high degree of
technical maturity and by a generally held belief that the
specified protocol or service provides significant benefit to the
Internet community.
The IESG, in an IETF-wide Last Call of at least four weeks, confirms
that a document advances from Proposed Standard to Internet Standard.
The request for reclassification is sent to the IESG along with an
explanation of how the criteria have been met. The criteria are:
(1) There are at least two independent interoperating implementations
with widespread deployment and successful operational experience.
(2) There are no errata against the specification that would cause a
new implementation to fail to interoperate with deployed ones.
(3) There are no unused features in the specification that greatly
increase implementation complexity.
(4) If the technology required to implement the specification
requires patented or otherwise controlled technology, then the
set of implementations must demonstrate at least two independent,
separate and successful uses of the licensing process.
After review and consideration of significant errata, the IESG will
perform an IETF-wide Last Call of at least four weeks on the
requested reclassification. If there is consensus for
reclassification, the RFC will be reclassified without publication of
a new RFC.
As stated in RFC 2026 [1], in a timely fashion after the expiration
of the Last Call period, the IESG shall make its final determination
and notify the IETF of its decision via electronic mail to the IETF
Announce mailing list. No changes are made to Section 6.1.2 of RFC
2026 [1].
2.3. Transition to a Standards Track with Two Maturity Levels
Any protocol or service that is currently at the Proposed Standard
maturity level remains so.
Any protocol or service that is currently at the Standard maturity
level shall be immediately reclassified as an Internet Standard.
Housley, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 4]
RFC 6410 Standards Track Maturity Levels October 2011
Any protocol or service that is currently at the abandoned Draft
Standard maturity level will retain that classification, absent
explicit actions. Two possible actions are available:
(1) A Draft Standard may be reclassified as an Internet Standard as
soon as the criteria in Section 2.2 are satisfied.
(2) At any time after two years from the approval of this document as
a BCP, the IESG may choose to reclassify any Draft Standard
document as Proposed Standard.
3. Removed Requirements
3.1. Removal of Requirement for Annual Review
In practice, the annual review of Proposed Standard and Draft
Standard documents after two years (called for in RFC 2026 [1]) has
not taken place. Lack of this review has not revealed any ill
effects on the Internet Standards Process. As a result, the
requirement for this review is dropped. No review cycle is imposed
on Standards Track documents at any maturity level.
3.2. Requirement for Interoperability Testing Reporting
Testing for interoperability is a long tradition in the development
of Internet protocols and remains important for reliable deployment
of services. The IETF Standards Process no longer requires a formal
interoperability report, recognizing that deployment and use is
sufficient to show interoperability.
Although no longer required by the IETF Standards Processes, RFC 5657
[2] can be helpful to conduct interoperability testing.
4. Security Considerations
This document does not directly affect the security of the Internet.
5. Acknowledgements
A two-tier Standards Track has been proposed many times. Spencer
Dawkins, Charlie Perkins, and Dave Crocker made a proposal in 2003.
Additional proposals were made by Scott Bradner in 2004, Brian
Carpenter in June 2005, and Ran Atkinson in 2006. This document
takes ideas from many of these prior proposals; it also incorporates
ideas from the IESG discussion in May 2010, the IETF 78 plenary
discussion in July 2010, and yet another proposal submitted by
Spencer Dawkins, Dave Crocker, Eric Burger, and Peter Saint-Andre in
November 2010.
Housley, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 5]
RFC 6410 Standards Track Maturity Levels October 2011
6. References
6.1. Normative References
[1] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP
9, RFC 2026, October 1996.
6.2. Informative References
[2] Dusseault, L. and R. Sparks, "Guidance on Interoperation and
Implementation Reports for Advancement to Draft Standard", BCP
9, RFC 5657, September 2009.
Author's Address
Russell Housley
Vigil Security, LLC
EMail: housley@vigilsec.com
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
EMail: dcrocker@bbiw.net
Eric W. Burger
Georgetown University
EMail: eburger@standardstrack.com
URI: http://www.standardstrack.com
Housley, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 6]
=========================================================================
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) P. Resnick
Request for Comments: 7100 Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
BCP: 9 December 2013
Obsoletes: 5000
Updates: 2026
Category: Best Current Practice
ISSN: 2070-1721
Retirement of the "Internet Official Protocol Standards"
Summary Document
Abstract
This document updates RFC 2026 to no longer use STD 1 as a summary of
"Internet Official Protocol Standards". It obsoletes RFC 5000 and
requests the IESG to move RFC 5000 (and therefore STD 1) to Historic
status.
Status of This Memo
This memo documents an Internet Best Current Practice.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It has been approved for publication by the Internet
Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on BCPs is
available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7100.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Resnick Best Current Practice [Page 1]
RFC 7100 Retirement of STD 1 December 2013
1. Retiring STD 1
RFC 2026 [RFC2026] and its predecessors call for the publication of
an RFC describing the status of IETF protocols:
The RFC Editor shall publish periodically an "Internet Official
Protocol Standards" RFC [1], summarizing the status of all
Internet protocol and service specifications.
The "Internet Official Protocol Standards" document, now as RFC 5000
[RFC5000], has always been listed in the Internet Standard series as
STD 1. However, the document has not been kept up to date in recent
years, and it has fallen out of use in favor of the online list
produced by the RFC Editor [STDS-TRK]. The IETF no longer sees the
need for the document to be maintained. Therefore, this document
updates RFC 2026 [RFC2026], effectively removing the above-mentioned
paragraph from Section 6.1.3, along with the paragraph from
Section 2.1 that states:
The status of Internet protocol and service specifications is
summarized periodically in an RFC entitled "Internet Official
Protocol Standards" [1]. This RFC shows the level of maturity and
other helpful information for each Internet protocol or service
specification (see section 3).
and the paragraph from Section 3.3 that states:
The "Official Protocol Standards" RFC (STD1) lists a general
requirement level for each TS, using the nomenclature defined in
this section. This RFC is updated periodically. In many cases,
more detailed descriptions of the requirement levels of particular
protocols and of individual features of the protocols will be
found in appropriate ASs.
Additionally, this document obsoletes RFC 5000 [RFC5000], the current
incarnation of that document, and requests that the IESG move that
document (and therefore STD 1) to Historic status.
Finally, RFC 2026 [RFC2026] Section 6.1.3 also calls for the
publication of an "official summary of standards actions completed
and pending" in the Internet Society's newsletter. This has also not
been done in recent years, and the "publication of record" for
standards actions has for some time been the minutes of the IESG
[IESG-MINUTES]. Therefore, that paragraph is also effectively
removed from Section 6.1.3.
Resnick Best Current Practice [Page 2]
RFC 7100 Retirement of STD 1 December 2013
2. Security Considerations
This document does not impact the security of the Internet.
3. Normative References
[IESG-MINUTES] Internet Engineering Steering Group, "IESG Telechat
Minutes", <http://www.ietf.org/iesg/minutes.html>.
[RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process --
Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996.
[RFC5000] RFC Editor, "Internet Official Protocol Standards",
RFC 5000, May 2008.
[STDS-TRK] RFC Editor, "Official Internet Protocol Standards",
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfcxx00.html>.
Author's Address
Pete Resnick
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
5775 Morehouse Drive
San Diego, CA 92121
US
Phone: +1 858 6511 4478
EMail: presnick@qti.qualcomm.com
Resnick Best Current Practice [Page 3]
=========================================================================
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) O. Kolkman
Request for Comments: 7127 NLnet Labs
BCP: 9 S. Bradner
Updates: 2026 Harvard University
Category: Best Current Practice S. Turner
ISSN: 2070-1721 IECA, Inc.
January 2014
Characterization of Proposed Standards
Abstract
RFC 2026 describes the review performed by the Internet Engineering
Steering Group (IESG) on IETF Proposed Standard RFCs and
characterizes the maturity level of those documents. This document
updates RFC 2026 by providing a current and more accurate
characterization of Proposed Standards.
Status of This Memo
This memo documents an Internet Best Current Practice.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It has been approved for publication by the Internet
Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on BCPs is
available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7127.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2014 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Kolkman, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 1]
RFC 7127 Characterization of Proposed Standards January 2014
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. IETF Review of Proposed Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. Characterization of Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1. Characterization of IETF Proposed Standard Specifications 3
3.2. Characteristics of Internet Standards . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Further Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Appendix A. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1. Introduction
In the two decades after publication of RFC 2026 [RFC2026], the IETF
has evolved its review processes of Proposed Standard RFCs, and thus
Section 4.1.1 of RFC 2026 no longer accurately describes IETF
Proposed Standards.
This document only updates the characterization of Proposed Standards
from Section 4.1.1 of RFC 2026 and does not speak to or alter the
procedures for the maintenance of Standards Track documents from RFC
2026 and RFC 6410 [RFC6410]. For complete understanding of the
requirements for standardization, those documents should be read in
conjunction with this document.
2. IETF Review of Proposed Standards
The entry-level maturity for the standards track is "Proposed
Standard". A specific action by the IESG is required to move a
specification onto the Standards Track at the "Proposed Standard"
level.
Initially it was intended that most IETF technical specifications
would progress through a series of maturity stages starting with
Proposed Standard, then progressing to Draft Standard, then finally
to Internet Standard (see Section 6 of RFC 2026). For a number of
reasons this progression is not common. Many Proposed Standards are
actually deployed on the Internet and used extensively, as stable
protocols. This proves the point that the community often deems it
unnecessary to upgrade a specification to Internet Standard. Actual
practice has been that full progression through the sequence of
standards levels is typically quite rare, and most popular IETF
protocols remain at Proposed Standard. Over time, the IETF has
developed a more extensive review process.
Kolkman, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 2]
RFC 7127 Characterization of Proposed Standards January 2014 IETF Proposed Standards documents have been subject to open development and review by the Internet technical community, generally including a number of formal cross-discipline reviews and, specifically, a security review. This is further strengthened in many cases by implementations and even the presence of interoperable code. Hence, IETF Proposed Standards are of such quality that they are ready for the usual market-based product development and deployment efforts into the Internet. 3. Characterization of Specifications The text in the following section replaces Section 4.1.1 of RFC 2026. Section 3.2 is a verbatim copy of the characterization of Internet Standards from Section 4.1.3 of RFC 2026 and is provided for convenient reference. The text only provides the characterization; process issues for Draft and Internet Standards are described in RFC 2026 and its updates, specifically RFC 6410. 3.1. Characterization of IETF Proposed Standard Specifications The entry-level maturity for the standards track is "Proposed Standard". A specific action by the IESG is required to move a specification onto the standards track at the "Proposed Standard" level. A Proposed Standard specification is stable, has resolved known design choices, has received significant community review, and appears to enjoy enough community interest to be considered valuable. Usually, neither implementation nor operational experience is required for the designation of a specification as a Proposed Standard. However, such experience is highly desirable and will usually represent a strong argument in favor of a Proposed Standard designation. The IESG may require implementation and/or operational experience prior to granting Proposed Standard status to a specification that materially affects the core Internet protocols or that specifies behavior that may have significant operational impact on the Internet. A Proposed Standard will have no known technical omissions with respect to the requirements placed upon it. Proposed Standards are of such quality that implementations can be deployed in the Internet. However, as with all technical specifications, Proposed Standards may be revised if problems are found or better solutions are identified, when experiences with deploying implementations of such technologies at scale is gathered. Kolkman, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 3]
RFC 7127 Characterization of Proposed Standards January 2014
3.2. Characteristics of Internet Standards
A specification for which significant implementation and successful
operational experience has been obtained may be elevated to the
Internet Standard level. An Internet Standard (which may simply be
referred to as a Standard) is characterized by a high degree of
technical maturity and by a generally held belief that the specified
protocol or service provides significant benefit to the Internet
community.
4. Further Considerations
Occasionally, the IETF may choose to publish as Proposed Standard a
document that contains areas of known limitations or challenges. In
such cases, any known issues with the document will be clearly and
prominently communicated in the document, for example, in the
abstract, the introduction, or a separate section or statement.
5. Security Considerations
This document does not directly affect the security of the Internet.
6. Normative References
[RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision
3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996.
[RFC6410] Housley, R., Crocker, D., and E. Burger, "Reducing the
Standards Track to Two Maturity Levels", BCP 9, RFC 6410,
October 2011.
Kolkman, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 4]
RFC 7127 Characterization of Proposed Standards January 2014 Appendix A. Acknowledgements This document is inspired by a discussion at the open microphone session during the technical plenary at IETF 87. Thanks to, in alphabetical order, Jari Arkko, Carsten Bormann, Scott Brim, Randy Bush, Benoit Claise, Dave Cridland, Spencer Dawkins, Adrian Farrel, Stephen Farrell, Subramanian Moonesamy, and Pete Resnick for motivation, input, and review. John Klensin and Dave Crocker have provided significant contributions. Authors' Addresses Olaf Kolkman Stichting NLnet Labs Science Park 400 Amsterdam 1098 XH The Netherlands EMail: olaf@nlnetlabs.nl URI: http://www.nlnetlabs.nl/ Scott O. Bradner Harvard University Information Technology Innovation and Architecture 8 Story St., Room 5014 Cambridge, MA 02138 United States of America Phone: +1 617 495 3864 EMail: sob@harvard.edu URI: http://www.harvard.edu/huit Sean Turner IECA, Inc. EMail: turners@ieca.com Kolkman, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 5]
=========================================================================
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) S. Dawkins
Request for Comments: 7475 Huawei
BCP: 9 March 2015
Updates: 2026, 2418
Category: Best Current Practice
ISSN: 2070-1721
Increasing the Number of Area Directors in an IETF Area
Abstract
This document removes a limit on the number of Area Directors who
manage an Area in the definition of "IETF Area". This document
updates RFC 2026 (BCP 9) and RFC 2418 (BCP 25).
Status of This Memo
This memo documents an Internet Best Current Practice.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It has been approved for publication by the Internet
Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on BCPs is
available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7475.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Dawkins Best Current Practice [Page 1]
RFC 7475 More Area Directors in an Area March 2015
Table of Contents
1. Introduction and Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. Normative Text Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1. Introduction and Scope
This document updates RFC 2026 ([RFC2026], BCP 9) to remove a limit
on the number of Area Directors who manage an Area in the definition
of "IETF Area". This document also updates RFC 2418 ([RFC2418], BCP
25) to reflect this updated definition.
The change described in this document is intended to allow the IESG
additional flexibility in organizing the IETF's work. It does not
make any changes to the role of an Area and does not argue that
assigning more than two Area Directors to an Area is an optimal
solution in the long run. In particular, this change is not intended
to increase the size of the IESG significantly. If several Areas
will require more than two Area Directors, the IESG should consider
investigating alternative ways of organizing the IETF's work.
2. Discussion
In recent discussions, the IESG has explored splitting and combining
Areas. One proposal resulted in a single Area that would be managed
by three Area Directors.
An Area managed by three Area Directors conflicts with this
definition in Section 14, "DEFINITIONS OF TERMS" of RFC 2026
([RFC2026]):
IETF Area - A management division within the IETF. An Area
consists of Working Groups related to a general topic such as
routing. An Area is managed by one or two Area Directors.
A similar statement appears in Section 1, "Introduction" of RFC 2418
([RFC2418]):
Each IETF area is managed by one or two Area Directors (ADs).
Dawkins Best Current Practice [Page 2]
RFC 7475 More Area Directors in an Area March 2015
While it's true that recent IESGs have had two Area Directors in each
Area except for the General Area, the number of Area Directors in
each Area has varied since the publication of RFC 1396 ([RFC1396]).
(For reference, see <http://www.ietf.org/iesg/past-members.html>.)
This variation was due to a number of factors, including workload and
personal preferences, and happened as a natural part of the IESG
organizing itself to do the work the IESG is chartered to do.
At one point, the IESG placed three Area Directors in a single Area
(Scott Bradner, Deirdre Kostick, and Michael O'Dell, in the
Operational & Management Requirements Area, between IETF 36 and IETF
37 in 1996).
The last time the IESG increased the number of Area Directors in an
Area was when they requested that the Nominating Committee provide a
second Area Director in the Routing Area in 1999. Although the
number of Area Directors in an Area hasn't changed since then, the
IESG continues to be responsible for specifying the positions that
the Nominating Committee fills each year.
It is consistent with the IESG's role in creating and dismantling
entire Areas to allow the IESG flexibility in assigning enough Area
Directors who have been selected by the Nominating Committee to
effectively manage the working groups within an Area.
Note the requirement in RFC 7437 ([RFC7437], BCP 10) that the
Nominating Committee review (approximately) half the positions for
the IESG each year is unchanged. The Nominating Committee may assign
an appropriate term duration for each position to ensure the ideal
application of this rule in the future, and this is also unchanged.
3. Normative Text Change
For this text (OLD) in Section 14, "DEFINITIONS OF TERMS" of RFC 2026
([RFC2026]):
IETF Area - A management division within the IETF. An Area
consists of Working Groups related to a general topic such as
routing. An Area is managed by one or two Area Directors.
Replace with this text (NEW):
IETF Area - A management division within the IETF. An Area
consists of Working Groups related to a general topic such as
routing. An Area is managed by one or more Area Directors.
Dawkins Best Current Practice [Page 3]
RFC 7475 More Area Directors in an Area March 2015
For this text (OLD) in Section 1, "Introduction" of RFC 2418
([RFC2418]):
Each IETF area is managed by one or two Area Directors (ADs).
Replace with this text (NEW):
Each IETF area is managed by one or more Area Directors (ADs).
Informational RFCs such as RFC 3710 ([RFC3710]) and informal
descriptions of IETF organizational structure that also describe IETF
Areas as being managed by one or two Area Directors should be
considered updated by this normative specification.
4. Security Considerations
This document updates an IETF process BCP and has no direct Internet
security implications.
5. References
5.1. Normative References
[RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision
3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2026>.
[RFC2418] Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and
Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 2418, September 1998,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2418>.
[RFC7437] Kucherawy, M., Ed., "IAB, IESG, and IAOC Selection,
Confirmation, and Recall Process: Operation of the
Nominating and Recall Committees", BCP 10, RFC 7437,
January 2015, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7437>.
5.2. Informative References
[RFC1396] Crocker, S., "The Process for Organization of Internet
Standards Working Group (POISED)", RFC 1396, January 1993,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1396>.
[RFC3710] Alvestrand, H., "An IESG charter", RFC 3710, February
2004, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3710>.
Dawkins Best Current Practice [Page 4]
RFC 7475 More Area Directors in an Area March 2015 Acknowledgements Thanks to Barry Leiba and Jari Arkko for applying the giggle test to version -00 of this document, and to Adrian Farrel, Alexey Melnikov, Brian Carpenter, Christer Holmberg, David Crocker, David Harrington, Donald Eastlake, Kathleen Moriarty, Murray Kucherawy, Susan Hares, Stephan Farrell, and Stewart Bryant for providing review comments. Thanks to Fred Baker, Michael St. Johns, and Scott Bradner for providing a better understanding of the history of how the IESG ended up with two Area Directors in most Areas and even, at one point, three Area Directors in one Area. Author's Address Spencer Dawkins Huawei Technologies EMail: spencerdawkins.ietf@gmail.com Dawkins Best Current Practice [Page 5]
=========================================================================
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) J. Halpern, Ed.
Request for Comments: 8789 Ericsson
BCP: 9 E. Rescorla, Ed.
Updates: 2026 Mozilla
Category: Best Current Practice June 2020
ISSN: 2070-1721
IETF Stream Documents Require IETF Rough Consensus
Abstract
This document requires that the IETF never publish any IETF Stream
RFCs without IETF rough consensus. This updates RFC 2026.
Status of This Memo
This memo documents an Internet Best Current Practice.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
BCPs is available in Section 2 of RFC 7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8789.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Terminology
3. Action
4. Discussion
5. IANA Considerations
6. Security Considerations
7. Normative References
8. Informative References
Authors' Addresses
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 "RFCs".
As a consequence, the IESG was permitted 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 permitted 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, when
looking more 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.
One could argue that there is a need for publishing some documents
that the community cannot 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
minority opinion Informational RFCs.
5. IANA Considerations
This document has no IANA actions.
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
[IESG-STATE-AD]
IESG, "Guidance on Area Director Sponsoring of Documents",
IESG Statement, March 2007,
<https://ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/statements/area-
director-sponsoring-documents/>.
Authors' Addresses
Joel Halpern (editor)
Ericsson
P.O. Box 6049
Leesburg, VA 20178
United States of America
Email: joel.halpern@ericsson.com
Eric Rescorla (editor)
Mozilla
331 E. Evelyn Ave.
Mountain View, CA 94101
United States of America
Email: ekr@rtfm.com
=========================================================================
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) B. Rosen
Request for Comments: 9282 June 2022
BCP: 9
Updates: 2026
Category: Best Current Practice
ISSN: 2070-1721
Responsibility Change for the RFC Series
Abstract
In RFC 9280, responsibility for the RFC Series moved to the RFC
Series Working Group and the RFC Series Approval Board. It is no
longer the responsibility of the RFC Editor, and the role of the IAB
in the RFC Series is altered. Accordingly, in Section 2.1 of RFC
2026, the sentence "RFC publication is the direct responsibility of
the RFC Editor, under the general direction of the IAB" is deleted.
Status of This Memo
This memo documents an Internet Best Current Practice.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
BCPs is available in Section 2 of RFC 7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9282.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2022 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the
Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described
in the Revised BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Responsibility Change
2. IANA Considerations
3. Security Considerations
4. References
4.1. Normative References
Author's Address
1. Responsibility Change
In [RFC9280], responsibility for the RFC Series moved to the RFC
Series Working Group and the RFC Series Approval Board. It is no
longer the responsibility of the RFC Editor, and the role of the IAB
in the RFC Series is altered. Accordingly, in Section 2.1 of
[RFC2026], the sentence "RFC publication is the direct responsibility
of the RFC Editor, under the general direction of the IAB" is
deleted.
2. IANA Considerations
This document has no IANA actions.
3. Security Considerations
This document presents no security considerations.
4. References
4.1. 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>.
[RFC9280] Saint-Andre, P., Ed., "RFC Editor Model (Version 3)",
RFC 9280, DOI 10.17487/RFC9280, June 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9280>.
Author's Address
Brian Rosen
470 Conrad Dr
Mars, PA 16046
United States of America
Email: br@brianrosen.net