Info/exptl RFCs [Re: Killing old/slow groups - transition thinking

Brian E Carpenter brian@hursley.ibm.com
Tue, 10 Dec 2002 14:14:45 +0100


Margaret Wasserman wrote:
...
> The first place I think that we should look is at the side
> track for publication of informational/experimental RFCs.
> Why does the IESG need to review all of the weakly academic
> documents that the RFC editor wants to publish as Info, just
> to see if they overlap the IETF and/or meet our guidelines?
> Perhaps we could set-up a separate review group to handle
> this task which would only bump the real problems up into
> the IESG?

Wearing my hat as an ISOC Trustee, I have to point out that
ISOC pays for the RFC series as its main way of supporting
the IETF standards process. We know that this is the reason
that many of ISOC's funders send the money each year. 

So, one can ask why ISOC should fund the publication of any RFC
that was *not* approved for publication by the IETF (currently
represented by the IESG) as part of the standards process. That
doesn't mean that experimental and informational RFCs shouldn't
be published, but they certainly shouldn't become rivals to
the standards track - they should be documents that complement
standards and BCPs.

I know that's not what you were suggesting, but it's a danger
in divorcing the approval processes.

I believe that the IESG does need to delegate document reviews,
that's Management 101, but then we have the challenge of finding
conscientious and trusted reviewers.

   Brian