Standards Classification and Reality Problem Statement (was Re: Not a problem statement [ was Re: Killing old/slow groups - transition thinking)

[Fred Baker]

At 09:35 AM 12/13/2002 -0800, James Kempf wrote:
>     - Increasing formalization of the WG ID "status" as being preordained for
>standards track, despite official IETF policy

it's not obvious to me that all working group documents are standards 
track; many are informational. If there's a "preordination", it is that a 
PS from a working group is deemed to need less justification (2 week last 
call vs a 4 week last call) than a PS from an individual submission. 
However, the latter exist as well.

consider these documents, all of which were sent to the IESG by the 
diffserv working group as working group documents. Of these, half are 
informational and half are PS, and several of the PS's are updates of 
previous PS's.

2474 Definition of the Differentiated Services Field (DS Field) in the
      IPv4 and IPv6 Headers. K. Nichols, S. Blake, F. Baker, D. Black.
      December 1998. (Format: TXT=50576 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC1455, RFC1349)
      (Updated by RFC3168, RFC3260) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

2475 An Architecture for Differentiated Service. S. Blake, D. Black,
      M. Carlson, E. Davies, Z. Wang, W. Weiss. December 1998. (Format:
      TXT=94786 bytes) (Updated by RFC3260) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

2597 Assured Forwarding PHB Group. J. Heinanen, F. Baker, W. Weiss, J.
      Wroclawski. June 1999. (Format: TXT=24068 bytes) (Updated by RFC3260)
      (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

2598 An Expedited Forwarding PHB. V. Jacobson, K. Nichols, K. Poduri.
      June 1999. (Format: TXT=23656 bytes) (Obsoleted by RFC3246) (Status:
      PROPOSED STANDARD)

2836 Per Hop Behavior Identification Codes. S. Brim, B. Carpenter, F.
      Le Faucheur. May 2000. (Format: TXT=13399 bytes) (Obsoleted by
      RFC3140) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

2983 Differentiated Services and Tunnels. D. Black. October 2000.
      (Format: TXT=35644 bytes) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

3086 Definition of Differentiated Services Per Domain Behaviors and
      Rules for their Specification. K. Nichols, B. Carpenter. April 2001.
      (Format: TXT=63122 bytes) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

3140 Per Hop Behavior Identification Codes. D. Black, S. Brim, B.
      Carpenter, F. Le Faucheur. June 2001. (Format: TXT=16586 bytes)
      (Obsoletes RFC2836) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

3246 An Expedited Forwarding PHB (Per-Hop Behavior). B. Davie, A.
      Charny, J.C.R. Bennet, K. Benson, J.Y. Le Boudec, W. Courtney, S.
      Davari, V. Firoiu, D. Stiliadis. March 2002. (Format: TXT=33896
      bytes) (Obsoletes RFC2598) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

3247 Supplemental Information for the New Definition of the EF PHB
      (Expedited Forwarding Per-Hop Behavior). A. Charny, J. Bennet, K.
      Benson, J. Boudec, A. Chiu, W. Courtney, S. Davari, V. Firoiu, C.
      Kalmanek, K. Ramakrishnan. March 2002. (Format: TXT=53786 bytes)
      (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

3248 A Delay Bound alternative revision of RFC 2598. G. Armitage, B.
      Carpenter, A. Casati, J. Crowcroft, J. Halpern, B. Kumar, J.
      Schnizlein. March 2002. (Format: TXT=21597 bytes) (Status:
      INFORMATIONAL)

3260 New Terminology and Clarifications for Diffserv. D. Grossman.
      April 2002. (Format: TXT=21900 bytes) (Updates RFC2474, RFC2475,
      RFC2597) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

3289 Management Information Base for the Differentiated Services
      Architecture. F. Baker, K. Chan, A. Smith. May 2002. (Format:
      TXT=239041 bytes) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

3290 An Informal Management Model for Diffserv Routers. Y. Bernet, S.
      Blake, D. Grossman, A. Smith. May 2002. (Format: TXT=129443 bytes)
      (Status: INFORMATIONAL)