[ih] "The Internet runs on Proposed Standards"

[Andrew G. Malis]

Toerless,

I ran the process on one of my RFCs (Multiprotocol Interconnect over Frame
Relay) back when there were three stages: RFCs 1294 (PS), 1490 (DS), and
finally 2427 (STD 55). It was not an inconsiderable amount of work. And by
the time we made it to full STD, we knew that it wasn't "crap", the IP and
bridging over FR market was working its way up to the billion $ mark
between vendor equipment and operator revenue. We knew it worked, and
worked well!

Cheers,
Andy


On Sat, Dec 3, 2022 at 10:45 AM Toerless Eckert <tte at cs.fau.de> wrote:

> I was recently trying to explain to my WG a bit how to "upgrade" a
> standards
> track RFC to a "full" IETF standard:
>
> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/anima/SacPSgFBbb0aOFAl9EcrZP8LXGk/
>
> Including to promote the idea of considering to invest the work to do so,
> because it turns your work into a "One percenter". Aka: roughly 10,000 RFC,
> but only about 100 full IETF standards.
>
> Of course, it does help too to point out something is a full internet
> standard
> by referring to nit not via its RFC number, but via it's STD number. Same
> as
> BCP.
>
> With all that being said, and as much as i like the idea to have more of
> our
> work go through that process, i also have to point out, that this may
> simply
> result in promoting crap. Even when we know it better. Aka: The bar for
> full Internet standard just means it is deployed and that nobody manages at
> the short time of the upgrade happening to complain about the spec not
> really working well enough to afford the title of full Internet standard.
>
> I was just raising the concern about one of the core IP multicast routing
> standards where i think the upgrade was not considering real deployment
> issues. But of course, i missed the upgrade window by 2 years, aka: i
> hadn't
> followed the work when the upgrade happened.
> (STD83,
> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/routing-discussion/5EuPCcXRjmf4skMkUTJrMKhst74
> )
>
> Oh well...
>
> Cheers
>     Toerless
>
> On Sat, Dec 03, 2022 at 09:34:54AM -0500, Andrew G. Malis via
> Internet-history wrote:
> > Brian et al,
> >
> > Having worked for both a bunch of vendors and a major operator, I think
> > it's more accurate to say that the Internet runs on a mix of IETF
> > Standards, Proposed Standards, internet drafts, and
> > various proprietary features from either a single vendor, or several
> > cooperating vendors pushed together by a common customer. In addition,
> > operators have been known to develop and use their own proprietary HW
> > and/or SW as well.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Andy
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Dec 1, 2022 at 9:16 PM Brian E Carpenter via Internet-history <
> > internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >
> > > I'm not sure whether this actually started before RFC1310 (March 1992),
> > > but certainly since then there have been multiple steps on the
> standards
> > > track: Proposed Standard, Draft Standard (no longer assigned) and
> Internet
> > > Standard.
> > >
> > > (Rumour has it that this started in pure imitation of the ISO standards
> > > process. Vint can probably speak to the truth of that.)
> > >
> > > But, as I first heard from Fred Baker, "The Internet runs on Proposed
> > > Standards", because most IETFers can't be bothered with the
> bureaucracy to
> > > take the next step. Draft Standard was abolished for new work to
> reduce the
> > > bureaucracy, but it hasn't had much effect. We did advance IPv6 to
> Internet
> > > Standard, but most WGs just don't bother.
> > >
> > > In any case, the formal "STD" designation doesn't really mean much.
> > >
> > > For a current non-IETF effort, I've drawn a diagram about how to
> interpret
> > > the status of RFCs. It can be found at
> > >
> https://github.com/becarpenter/book6/blob/main/8.%20Further%20Reading/8.%20Further%20Reading.md
> > >
> > > Regards
> > >     Brian Carpenter
> > >
> > > On 02-Dec-22 09:52, touch at strayalpha.com wrote:
> > > > On Nov 30, 2022, at 1:36 PM, Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org> wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >> Well, maybe...
> > > >>
> > > >> RFC5227 describes itself as a proposed standard.  Has it
> subsequently
> > > become an actual standard?   I don't see it in the "Official Internet
> > > Protocol Standards" maintained at rfc-editor.org but maybe it had
> later
> > > revisions.
> > > >
> > > > That distinction isn’t all that significant. There are a LOT of
> > > protocols that never progressed beyond the initial “PS” status:
> > > > https://www.rfc-editor.org/standards#PS
> > > > Progression requires not only some specific hurdles, but also the
> will
> > > and effort of someone to walk the spec through that process. The
> latter is
> > > more often the limitation.
> > > >
> > > >> If it or a descendant is a Standard, does that prevent the creation
> of
> > > "tools" such as the Flakeway I described?  RFCs are full of "SHOULD"
> and
> > > "MUST" directives, which systems such as Flakeway probably violated.
> If
> > > RFC5227 was universally and correctly implemented, would it prevent
> someone
> > > from implementing a Flakeway-like tool, assuming of course they don't
> feel
> > > the need to follow the RFCs' rules?
> > > >>
> > > >> If RFC5227 et al do in fact prevent such behavior, how does one know
> > > whether or not the proscribed mechanisms are actually present in one's
> > > equipment?  I just looked and I have 54 devices on my home Ethernet.
>  Some
> > > are wired, some are wifi, and from many different companies.  How do I
> tell
> > > if they've all correctly implemented the mechanisms proscribed in the
> RFCs?
> > > >
> > > > The IETF provides no mechanisms for protocol validation. That’s true
> for
> > > all MUSTs, SHOULDs, and MAYs for all protocols.
> > > >
> > > >> So, is it really "fixed" even today?
> > > >>
> > > >> I guess it depends on how you define "fixed”.
> > > >
> > > > Doesn’t it always? :-)
> > > >
> > > > Joe
> > > >
> > > >
> > > --
> > > Internet-history mailing list
> > > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> > >
> > --
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>
> --
> ---
> tte at cs.fau.de
>