Documenting pilots (RE: pausable explanation for the Document Series)

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand]

--On fredag, juni 06, 2003 09:30:05 +0300 Pekka Savola <pekkas at netcore.fi> 
wrote:

> In real world, people implement the protocols for pilot/test purposes in
> any case.  This can be done when the I-D has reached reasonable level of
> stability.
>
> Of course, we could try to add some "experimental" category below PS, to
> try to document these pilot protocols -- but this is slightly problematic
> also, as we have to make sure people understand that if protocol is
> modified for PS, no backward-compatibility must be required..

two examples of trying exactly that approach....

RFC 2362
     Protocol Independent Multicast-Sparse Mode (PIM-SM): Protocol
     Specification. D. Estrin, D. Farinacci, A. Helmy, D. Thaler, S.
     Deering, M. Handley, V. Jacobson, C. Liu, P. Sharma, L. Wei. June
     1998. (Format: TXT=159833 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC2117) (Status:
     EXPERIMENTAL)

RFC 3208
     PGM Reliable Transport Protocol Specification. T. Speakman, J.
     Crowcroft, J. Gemmell, D. Farinacci, S. Lin, D. Leshchiner, M. Luby,
     T. Montgomery, L. Rizzo, A. Tweedly, N. Bhaskar, R. Edmonstone, R.
     Sumanasekera, L. Vicisano. December 2001. (Format: TXT=244637 bytes)
     (Status: EXPERIMENTAL)

I think the general idea seems attractive, but Real Life has twisted our 
expectations at least in the case of PIM-SM, and I have heard rumblings 
about the same thing wrt PGM - that "the RFC is out there, and works for 
the 95% case I need" has taken a great deal of interest away from working 
on other possible solutions - or even pushing the thing onto the standards 
track at all.

It's possible that "permanently archived I-D copy" would do better. Then 
again, maybe not.

Of course, I'm not an expert in either field, so if I have to hurriedly 
retract my reading of the situation when the real experts chime in, I 
apologize in advance.....

                       Harald