Let me see if I can take a step back here. When RFC 9280 was published, we listed a set of historical properties about the RFC Series and said that we should apply heightened scrutiny before changing them. I believe there is also consensus that these properties applied at the time RFC 9280 was published, so they were both historical and current.
Amongst those properties was "Stability": Once published, RFC Series documents are not changed. After due consideration and heightened scrutiny (at least in the WG and hopefully soon at the RSAB) we have decided to change one of those properties to allow non-semantic changes, applying the new policy: Once published, RFCs may be reissued, but the semantic content of publication versions shall be preserved to the greatest extent possible. Now, the situation with respect to this property is: - We have the historical property that RFCs are not changed once issued. - We have the current property that RFCs may be reissued. I suppose you could argue that this property will be the new historical property as soon as the RFC is published, but I think that's an unhelpful view. However, the other properties remain both historical and current, though of course they can be changed by the WG and RSAB. Hopefully people agree that this is a correct statement of the situation. Now, in terms of what to do... Part of the point of the use of the word "historical" here is that the RSWG didn't really have consensus on these properties (and in fact there was knowledge that we might well change the specific property we are now discussing), but was noting that they had the weight of history. To that end, I don't think that we should remove the word historical. Rather, I think we should note that this specific property was historically true and that per the defined process we changed it and now the current description applied. Eliot, does that seem like something you can live with? -Ekr On Wed, Jun 18, 2025 at 8:11 AM Paul Hoffman <[email protected]> wrote: > On Jun 18, 2025, at 07:48, Eliot Lear <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > You're not actually addressing my point. > > I misunderstood your point because I did not expect you to be proposing a > factual change to RFC 9280 at this time. > > > The chapeau is now inaccurate. > > I'm not sure what you mean by "now". The text in the draft is identical to > RFC 9280. > > > Here's the existing text: > > > >> 7. Historical Properties of the RFC Series > >> > >> This section lists some of the properties that have been historically > >> regarded as important to the RFC Series. Proposals that affect these > >> properties are possible within the processes defined in this > >> document. As described in Sections Section 3.2.2 and Section 3.2.3, > >> proposals that might have a detrimental effect on these properties > >> should receive heightened scrutiny during RSWG discussion and RSAB > >> review. The purpose of this scrutiny is to ensure that all changes > >> are deliberate and that the consequences of a proposal, as far as > >> they can be identified, have been carefully considered. > > > Some of the properties are not historical, > > The IAB of the time thought so. > > > and I would like them not to be represented as such. > > We can make that change, and note the change as a sub-section of Section > 1. Can you please give text for that section about why we currently think > the IAB was wrong to use "Historical" and "historically"? > > > Even simply removing the word "Historical" in the title and > "historically" above would suffice. No need to change the text below. > Less is more. > > Others on this thread disagree with you about not changing the text in the > subsections of Section 7. I'm trying, as co-author, to meet differing views. > > --Paul Hoffman > > -- > rswg mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] >
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