IETF mission (RE: pausable explanation for the Document Series)

[Spencer Dawkins]

Well, if full STDs were the rule, rather than the exception,
we could be using multi-RFC STDs as the objects
John is asking for - we know how to group RFCs 791
and 792 as STD 5, for instance. When we have a STD,
we have an object that could also hold bug reports,
implementation guidance, etc.

If Brian's "one-shot standard" proposal plus Harald's
maintenance team proposal gave us STDs as the
common case, this would be routine.

Spencer

----- Original Message -----
From: <john.loughney at nokia.com>
To: <brian at hursley.ibm.com>; <problem-statement at alvestrand.no>
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 7:19 AM
Subject: RE: IETF mission (RE: pausable explanation for the Document Series)


Hi Brian,

> In any case, since we don't actually use the complexity we
> already have (3 grades of standard), the need is clearly to
> *simplify* the document scheme, not to complicate it. My thinking
> is getting more radical the longer this discussion continues. Let's
> think seriously about
>
>  Problem: the 3 step standards track is largely fictional
>
> and possible solutions along the lines of
>
>  Solution: let's scrap it and have all "standards" RFCs as a single level
>  (with recycling in grade for corrections/updates).

Actually, if we coupled this with Harald's "maintenance team"
idea, it may actually work.  I think we would need to have some
'object' that tracks bugs in a spec (hmm, issue tracking software
might be nice) and the resolution, etc.  A nice, simple interface
that would pull all of this together could be really useful.

John