[Old-standards] Re: Historic (Re: List of Old Standards to be retired)

[William Allen Simpson]

Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:

>>> Marking the document historic does not take it "away" from deployment
>>> -- marking document as historic doesn't hurt at all (except
>>> procedurally, when used as a normative reference, but then we have to
>>> do some work in any case if the reference was outdated).
>>>
>> This must be some new redefinition of the meaning of a Historic RFC.
>> In the past, it meant "don't do it this way anymore, we no longer
>> recommend it, there's another way to accomplish the same goal".
>> So, for the PPP items listed, what's the better way to accomplish the
>> same goal?
>
>
> No, it's the old definition of Historic.
>
Good.  For clarity, as I did the above response from decade old memory,
that would be:

   * 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. [RFC-2026 p 11]

  * has been superceded by a more recent specification [RFC-2026 p 16]

  * or is for any other reason considered to be obsolete [RFC-2026 p 16]

> The definition "Historic = Bad" is a change that has been encouraged 
> by the practice of not routinely making documents Historic.
>
> This is, to my mind, no more sensible than the twisting of 
> "Experimental = Kiss of Death" that was the vogue some years ago, 
> which we seem to have successfully untwisted.
>
> I think it makes sense for Historic to mean what RFC 2026 said it was.
> And if it does not, we should explicitly decide to say otherwise.
>
We must be in agreement, although for some odd reason I thought you
were disagreeing with me.  That "no" confused me.  ;-)

-- 
William Allen Simpson
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