Subject: Labeling of standards: many proposed/draft standards are obsolete

From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 14:55:46 -0400

One difficulty of correctly representing RFCs by status is that the RFC
index is less than helpful in determining the status of an RFC. For
example, obsoleted RFCs are still marked as a Proposed Standard (e.g.,
RFC 1331) or even as a Draft Standard (RFC 1548). It would be helpful if
rfc-index.txt and STD 1 were to agree on status, as rfc-index.txt is
about the only non-manual way to generate listings of standards status,
e.g., for citations.

If a draft/proposed standard gets obsoleted, shouldn't it automatically
become historic? Or do RFCs that have been replaced get to keep their
medals like retired soldiers, with rfc-index.txt as their Memorial Day
parade?

This would seem to be in line with RFC 2026:

   A specification that has been superseded by a more recent
   specification or is for any other reason considered to be obsolete is
   assigned to the "Historic" level.

A bit of local housekeeping might make it more convincing when
castigating reporters and others...
-- 
Henning Schulzrinne   http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 23:01:55 +0200

>about the only non-manual way to generate listings of standards status,

That "obsoleted by" sticker is pretty obvious, when it's present.
If you think it's missing, drop a line to the RFC Editor.

A more severe problem is those Proposed RFCs whose technical content got 
split in 3 parts, 1 got to Draft, 1 recycled at Proposed, and 1 never got 
republished, so the old RFC is still the authority for it.....

>medals like retired soldiers, with rfc-index.txt as their Memorial Day

I like the history. But I've been doing it for too long to see the forest 
for the RFCs.

                  Harald
--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, Maxware, Norway
[email-masked]

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 23:01:55 +0200

Harald

---

From: William Allen Simpson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 22:22:30 -0400

The pointers to RFC 1331 and 1548 have long been in error.  I sent
a note about it to Postel several times, but he never got around to
fixing it.  In the old days, things would advance in the list, from
Proposed to Draft to Final, and they'd have an asterisk next to them
indicating the change.  The bookkeeping got a little sloppy as IETF
got too large.

Henning Schulzrinne wrote:
>...

[email-masked]
    Key fingerprint =  17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26  DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32

---

From: William Allen Simpson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 22:22:30 -0400

[email-masked]