Subject: NOT "inciting to riot" (was: Last Call: IP over MIME to Proposed Standard)

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 18:00:23 -0500

I know some of our frequent contributors are already aware of the 
"Last Call: IP over MIME to Proposed Standard" thread on the 
main IETF list.

We already have "mission statement" on our dance card for the 
solutions work. That's good.

I don't have an opinion on the topic itself, but a number of people
do, focused on whether "IP over MIME" is a suitable technology for
Proposed Standard (the only other comment I've seen is that
the document has normative references that are not standards-track).

And the relevant point for this group is that I haven't seen anyone
pointing to something written down as a filter for whether "IP 
over MIME" is something the IETF should standardize. The
comments have been based on opinions and precedents.

I would hope that our mission statement would help us to
have (shorter) conversations like this AT LAST CALL TIME!

Best wishes,

Spencer Dawkins

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 21:54:37 -0400

> over MIME" is something the IETF should standardize.

you mean besides RFC 2026?  

specifically the bits about 

   A Proposed Standard specification is generally stable, has resolved
   known design choices, is believed to be well-understood, has received
   significant community review, and appears to enjoy enough community
   interest to be considered valuable. 

and

   A Proposed Standard should have no known technical omissions with
   respect to the requirements placed upon it. 

?

but yes, I do think that the "IP over MIME" discussion is probably a good
example of why we need a better defined scope for IETF standardization 
activities.

Keith

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 22:35:08 -0500

Dear Keith.

Yes, precisely - there were two subthreads, one subthread that I would
expect during Last Call ("you have normative references that aren't
standards-track") and one that I would have hoped would NOT be
taking place during Last Call ("this is dumb, not useful, ..."). It was
not at all clear to me what language we would point to (2026 or otherwise)
to support a decision not to standardize "IP over MIME", so we're
left with jawing back and forth to see whether we really standarize it or
not, and when Aaron Falk and I finally submit our long-threatened
"IP over Hand Percussion" ID as a Proposed Standard, there's no
clear answer from "IP over MIME", so we'll get to have the same
discussion with a slightly-different subject line then, too...

Spencer

----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith Moore" <[email-masked]>
To: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2003 8:54 PM
Subject: Re: NOT "inciting to riot" (was: Last Call: IP over MIME to
Proposed Standard)

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 00:03:31 -0400

> taking place during Last Call ("this is dumb, not useful, ..."). 

If it were a WG document presumably the WG would have done that level of
vetting.  But this seems to be an individual submission. 

> It was not at all clear to me what language we would point to (2026 or
> otherwise) to support a decision not to standardize "IP over MIME"

I think there's plenty of leverage in 2026 to justify not standardizing this. 
But it's probably also the case that there's a lot of thinking regarding
scope/applicability of IETF standards that isn't currently written down.

Note that this is really isn't a question of whether "IP over X" is within
IETF's scope to standardize (it certainly is), but rather, a question of
whether IETF has an obligation to standardize every reasonably complete "IETF
over X" proposal, no matter how limited its applicability.