[ih] "The Internet runs on Proposed Standards"

[Brian E Carpenter]

On 03-Dec-22 13:48, John Day wrote:
> The only reason that ISO has a two level approval is the first is to get consensus from the committee that may have several working groups (e.g. SC6 has 3 or 4 working groups that Physical Layer, Data Link Layer including LANs, and Networking) and the second to get consent across committees (computing and networking, banking, Highway signs, Paper Size, avionics, drones, etc.) that cover even more diverse topics.
> 
> The IETF at least initially didn’t really have that diversity or could one argue that the two levels were the Areas and the IESG?

These days, WG Last Calls are a de facto first stage and there are semi-formalised Area reviews during the formal IETF Last Call. So even the process for getting to Proposed Standard is quite elaborate. Some people would even say that the IESG is too zealous.

But as Andy suggested, permissionless innovation still has a big role. Consider QUIC for example.

     Brian

> 
>> On Dec 2, 2022, at 19:02, Brian E Carpenter via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>
>> On 02-Dec-22 19:25, Carsten Bormann wrote:
>>> On 2. Dec 2022, at 03:16, Brian E Carpenter via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> In any case, the formal "STD" designation doesn't really mean much.
>>> I don’t quite agree.  This inconspicuous label has helped provide motivation for some significant efforts that led to tremendously improved specifications.
>>> Going to STD is pretty much the only IETF activity that creates legitimate space for considerable reflection.
>>> That said, I’d say that the *absence* of the formal “STD” designation doesn’t really mean much.
>>> The fact that we label our regular-quality specifications “Proposed Standard” is highly misleading to people not familiar with the arcana of the process.
>>> If I were tasked to name the single most damaging self-inflicted feature of the process, this would probably be that label.
>>
>> Since this is the history list, I will limit myself to observing that there have been several attempts in recent history to reduce the standards track to a single stage, and it seems that interest in this question and energy to discuss it is approximately zero.
>> See the above subject header.
>>
>>     Brian
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>