Subject: [Rfcplusplus] Every standards organization has the same problems, but the IETF is proud to be different

From: Martin J. Dürst <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2018 20:57:38 +0900

Hello everybody,

I have tried to follow the ongoing debate, but I'm apologizing if I have 
missed some of the contributions.

This is a very rough writeup of my current thoughts, mostly centering on 
things that I haven't seen mentioned much. I hope it can give some 
additional input into the BOF, which I won't be able to attend, not even 
remotely, because of time zone differences.

I have to admit that I'm an IETF old-timer (involved since about 1994) 
and also have been quite a bit involved in other standards organizations 
(in particular W3C as a team member from 1997 to 2005).

One main thing that I think hasn't been mentioned too much is that 
virtually every standards organization struggles with explaining what 
exactly their different document categories mean, and how these relate 
(or don't relate) to their process.

Even the best labeling cannot avoid that need for explanations, and 
changing labels isn't going to help that much, because it creates 
additional confusion. (If we introduce additional labels, and reserve 
"RFC" for IETF standards track documents, we will still have to explain 
the old usages, in addition to the new ones. And it gets even worse in 
case the "experiment" is canceled.)

Another point is that I always saw the fact that everybody can post an 
Internet-Draft, and many things can become RFCs (of one category or 
another) as linked to the way the IETF (in the widest sense) and the 
Internet work. In some ways, it looks like a corollary to "We reject 
kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running 
code".

I'm not sure I have expressed myself well, but I hope you get the ghist 
of it.

Wishing everybody a successful BOF and a successful IETF overall (wish I 
could be there).

Regards,   Martin.