Subject: [Tools-discuss] One RFC, two streams

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2021 08:54:25 +1300

Hi,

I'm not sure if this belongs here or on rfc-interest.

I have noticed that the datatracker identifies RFC2850 as being in the IAB Stream, but it is a BCP, which to me says that it must be in the IETF Stream. It was indeed Last Called in the IETF and formally approved by the IESG, following the RFC2026 process. It was also approved by the IAB. It is logically, therefore, in both streams (although the streams had not been defined at the time of publication).

Can an RFC be marked as belonging simultaneously to two streams? If not, why not? Which tooling would need to be changed?

(This may seem like a corner case but it may not be unique for much longer.)
 
Regards
   Brian Carpenter

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc2850/
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2850

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From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2021 15:12:44 -0700

On 28 Sep 2021, at 12:54, Brian E Carpenter wrote:

> I have noticed that the datatracker identifies RFC2850 as being in the 
> IAB Stream, but it is a BCP, which to me says that it must be in the 
> IETF Stream.

Yeeps. Good call. Not sure where this should be discussed, but it 
definitely needs to be discussed. We have been pretty strong on "IAB 
stream RFCs are not standards" and "BCPs are standards".

--Paul Hoffman

---

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2021 08:41:49 -0500

On 9/28/21 5:12 PM, Paul Hoffman wrote:
>> I have noticed that the datatracker identifies RFC2850 as being in 
>> the IAB Stream, but it is a BCP, which to me says that it must be in 
>> the IETF Stream.
>

I think you'll find disagreement about BCPs being standards, and 
definitely about whether they are on the standards track.

_I_ think they're stronger than standards, but I've had lots of 
arguments with IESGs over the years about that - it occasionally comes 
up to argue about whether a reference to a BCP from a PS is a downref 
for instance.

IMHO,  "What is a BCP" question is a murky swamp.

>
>
> --Paul Hoffman
>
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---

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2021 08:52:05 -0500

There are surely things that would have to change in the rfc-editor 
tooling that I don't know about, so this isn't comprehensive.

The grammar in xml2rfc would have to change - the assumption that a 
document belongs to 0 or 1 streams is deeply baked in. Decisions would 
need to be made about how to render having more than one stream.

The datatracker would have to change significantly - there are lots of 
places where process is modeled (to help users through it) that would 
have to learn about the possibility of multiple streams. Decisions would 
need to be made about what happens with the intersection of process 
requirements on the two streams and those would have to be reflected. 
The one stream assumption is again quite deeply baked in and it would 
take a thorough scrubbing to change it.

It would be possible to adjust those two codebases but it would be a 
medium large problem to work through.

Do consider, though, that there are decades of accrual of _other_ things 
(software at other SDOs, etc) out there that use our products that 
assume one stream per document.

RjS

On 9/28/21 2:54 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> * Report datatracker and mailarchive bugs to: [email-masked]
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---

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2021 13:16:54 -0600

Thanks, Robert, this is helpful.

For context:

https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rfced-future/ZZv07GgSdtcuaf8W3aSeOYxIgIQ/

To reduce complexity, I'd prefer that we publish the RFCED-Future 
document in the IAB stream only.

Peter

On 9/29/21 7:52 AM, Robert Sparks wrote:
>> IETF Stream. It was indeed Last Called in the IETF and formally 
>> approved by the IESG, following the RFC2026 process. It was also 
>> approved by the IAB. It is logically, therefore, in both streams 
>> (although the streams had not been defined at the time of publication).
>>
>> Can an RFC be marked as belonging simultaneously to two streams? If 
>> not, why not? Which tooling would need to be changed?
>>

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2021 09:06:32 +1300

> IMHO,  "What is a BCP" question is a murky swamp.

Agreed, but they are definitely IETF documents defined by the basic
IETF process document, which is the relevance  of my original question.

(fwiw I see them exactly at the same level as the standards track for
normative reference purposes.)

   Brian

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From: Eric Rescorla <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2021 13:08:13 -0700

> normative reference purposes.)

This is my understanding as wel.

-Ekr