--On Monday, May 06, 2013 00:26 -0700 Bill McQuillan <mcqui...@pobox.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, 2013-05-05, John C Klensin wrote: > >> Finally, there are a few things that we used to do, that were >> helpful, and that were abandoned due to industry evolution and >> changes in priorities. The original idea of a Proposed >> Standard as a fairly rough specification that would be used >> for study and evaluation on the basis of implementation >> experience, not a spec from which products were built, is one >> that has been mentioned (although not quite in that way). > > FWIW, this leads me to the thought that the IETF may have a > terminology problem. The word "standard" is used too soon in > the maturity levels of RFCs. > > I think that our skills are primarily in producing "protocols" > rather than "standards". Perhaps it would have been better if > the names of the maturity levels were something like: > > Proposed Protocol > Test Version 1 Protocol > Test Version 2 protocol > . > . > . > Standard Protocol > > Only using the word "standard" when it was determined to be > stable and recommended for wide usage. Not the first time this has been proposed. Or even only the fourth or fifth. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad idea, just one the community has not been willing to adopt. john
