Subject: recent change to draft-reschke-rfc2731bis (in IESG)

From: Alfred Hönes <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 2009 13:53:17 +0100 (MEZ)

Julian,
one detail of the recent change leading to draft-reschke-rfc2731bis-05
seems to be ill-advised -- and that is to be taken literally  [*].

Whenever a new RFC Obsoletes a previous one, making a *Normative*
reference to the obsoleted RFC is nonsensical -- it effectively
produces a new normative down-reference; that would be like sitting
on the knot you are going to saw off.

The "Instructions to RFC Authors" (available from the RFC Editor
Homepage) say in Section 2.7 (2nd para):

---- begin quote ----
   Within an RFC, references to other documents fall into two general
!  categories: "normative" and "informative".  Normative references
!  specify documents that must be read to understand or implement the
!  technology in the new RFC, or whose technology must be present for
!  the technology in the new RFC to work.  An informative reference
   is not normative; rather, it provides only additional information.
   For example, an informative reference might provide background or
   historical information.  Material in an informative reference is
   not required to implement the technology in the RFC.
---- end quote ----

Making a obsoleting an old document is not compatible with saying
in the same new RFC that it depends on the former, that it "must
be read to understand or implement the technology in the new RFC,
or whose technology must be present for the technology in the
new RFC to work.".

The hole point of rfc2731bis is to say that RFC 2731 should *not*
be used.  Therefore, I hope that the DISCUSS [*] that has caused the
ref. to RFC 2731 being promoted to Normative can be reconsidered.

On the other hand, it seems acceptable to Normatively refer to the
current document of origin outside of the IETF that is to be
considered as the normative successor of RFC 2731.

Hence, in rfc2731bis-05, the following change should be applied
(and I hope that the IESG concurs with the "Instructions to
RFC Authors"):

OLD:
+++

|4.  Normative References
 
   [DC-HTML]  Johnston, P. and A. Powell, "Expressing Dublin Core
              metadata using HTML/XHTML meta and link elements", Dublin
              Core Metadata Initiative , August 2008,
              <http://dublincore.org/documents/2008/08/04/dc-html/>.
|
   [RFC2731]  Kunze, J., "Encoding Dublin Core Metadata in HTML",
              RFC 2731, December 1999.

   [1]  <http://dublincore.org/>

NEW:
+++

|4.  References
|
|4.1.  Normative References

   [DC-HTML]  Johnston, P. and A. Powell, "Expressing Dublin Core
              metadata using HTML/XHTML meta and link elements", Dublin
              Core Metadata Initiative , August 2008,
              <http://dublincore.org/documents/2008/08/04/dc-html/>.
|
|4.2.  Informative References
|
   [RFC2731]  Kunze, J., "Encoding Dublin Core Metadata in HTML",
              RFC 2731, December 1999.

   [1]  <http://dublincore.org/>

Kind regards,
  Alfred Hönes.

-- 

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+------------------------+--------------------------------------------+

[*]
https://datatracker.ietf.org/idtracker/draft-reschke-rfc2731bis/comment/105607/

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:12:14 +0100

Hi Alfred,

I absolutely agree with you. I'll be happy to undo the change if the 
IESG agrees.

Best regards, Julian

Alfred � wrote:
>   Alfred H�nes.

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