Re: Last Call: The Kitchen Sink Resource Record to Proposed

["Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <dee@CYBERCASH.COM>]

While I don't want to imply that this draft could not be improved in many 
ways, saying it can't be standards track is like saying that IPv6 can't 
be standards track.  After all, how can you test all possible packets?

The Kitchen Sink draft proposes certain DNS RR formats some of whose bits 
are specified and some of whose bits are up to the user, just like every 
other protocol the IETF has ever adopted.  Seems easy enough to me to 
test in various ways.

Donald


On Fri, 16 May 1997, William Allen Simpson wrote: 

> Date: Fri, 16 May 97 18:14:04 GMT
> From: William Allen Simpson <wsimpson@greendragon.com>
> To: ietf@ietf.org
> Cc: namedroppers@internic.net
> Subject: Re: Last Call: The Kitchen Sink Resource Record to Proposed
> 
> > From: Thomas Narten <narten@cichlid.raleigh.ibm.com>
> > My question is motivated by what happens long term, when the document
> > proceeds further down the Standards track to Draft and Full
> > Standard. Will the community ever want this protocol to be a full
> > Internet Standard? If the answer is no, Standards Track seems totally
> > inappropriate, and the IETF should not suggest otherwise by allowing
> > it to enter the Standards Track in the first place. At the same time,
> > I've had private conversations that suggest elevating documents to
> > Proposed is not considered a big deal, and they can be nixed later if
> > necessary. Thus, now is not the time to worry about these sorts of
> > issues.
> >
> I don't think that this can be "Standards Track", because it would be
> difficult if not impossible to "advance" it.  How do you test
> interoperability with all possible formats?
> 
> What we did in PPP WG was to publish "Vendor Specific" extensions as an
> "Informational" update to RFC-1661.  That way, we have a place to point
> them, but the understanding that interoperability is not expected.
> 
> Funny thing, when the sink draft came out, I though it was a candidate
> for the April 1 RFC.  Only later did I learn that it was serious.
> 
> It's reasonably written, and probably serves a purpose, so we should
> advance it as something, but Standards Track seems inappropriate to me,
> too.  Experimental?
> 
> WSimpson@UMich.edu
>     Key fingerprint =  17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26  DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32
> BSimpson@MorningStar.com
>     Key fingerprint =  2E 07 23 03 C5 62 70 D3  59 B1 4F 5E 1D C2 C1 A2
> 

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