Network Working Group Y. Sheffer
Internet-Draft Intuit
Obsoletes: 6982 (if approved) A. Farrel
Intended status: Best Current Practice Juniper Networks
Expires: December 4, 2016 June 02, 2016

Improving Awareness of Running Code: The Implementation Status Section
draft-sheffer-rfc6982bis-02

Abstract

This document describes a simple process that allows authors of Internet-Drafts to record the status of known implementations by including an Implementation Status section. This will allow reviewers and working groups to assign due consideration to documents that have the benefit of running code, which may serve as evidence of valuable experimentation and feedback that have made the implemented protocols more mature.

This process is not mandatory. Authors of Internet-Drafts are encouraged to consider using the process for their documents, and working groups are invited to think about applying the process to all of their protocol specifications. This document obsoletes RFC 6982, advancing it to a Best Current Practice.

Status of This Memo

This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

This Internet-Draft will expire on December 4, 2016.

Copyright Notice

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction

Most IETF participants are familiar with the saying “rough consensus and running code” [Tao] and can identify with its pragmatic approach. However, implementation is not a requirement for publication as an RFC. There are many examples of Internet-Drafts containing protocol specification that have gone through to publication as Proposed Standard RFCs without implementation. Some of them may never get implemented.

Over time, a variety of policies have been applied within the IETF to consider running code. In the Routing Area, it used to be a requirement that one or more implementations must exist before an Internet-Draft could be published as a Proposed Standard RFC [RFC1264]. That RFC was later obsoleted and the requirement for implementation was lifted, but each working group was given the authority to impose its own implementation requirements [RFC4794] and at least one working group, Inter-Domain Routing (IDR), continues to require two independent implementations.

The hypothesis behind the current document is that there are benefits to the IETF standardization process of producing implementations of protocol specifications before publication as RFCs. These benefits, which include determining that the specification is comprehensible and that there is sufficient interest to implement, are further discussed in Section 4.

This document describes a simple mechanism that allows authors of Internet-Drafts to record and publicize the status of known implementations by including an Implementation Status section. The document defines (quite informally) the contents of this section to ensure that the relevant information is included. This will allow reviewers and working groups to assign due consideration to documents that have the benefit of running code, which may serve as evidence of valuable experimentation and feedback that have made the implemented protocols more mature.

It is up to the individual working groups to use this information as they see fit, but one result might be the preferential treatment of documents, resulting in them being processed more rapidly. We recommend that the Implementation Status section should be removed from Internet-Drafts before they are published as RFCs. As a result, we do not envisage changes to this section after approval of the document for publication, while the document sits in the RFC-editor queue, e.g., the RFC errata process does not apply.

This process is not mandatory. Authors of Internet-Drafts are encouraged to consider using the process for their documents, and working groups are invited to think about applying the process to all of their protocol specifications.

The scope of this process is all Internet-Drafts (I-Ds) that contain implementable specifications, whether produced within IETF working groups or outside working groups but intended for IETF consensus. I-Ds published on the Independent Stream are explicitly out of scope. It is expected that the greatest benefit will be seen with Standards Track documents developed within working groups.

This process was initially proposed as an experiment in [RFC6982]. That document is now obsoleted, and the process advanced to Best Current Practice.

Historically there have been other ways for experience based on protocol implementations to feed back into the IETF process. Many “implementation reports” have been published, in some cases several years after the protocol was originally published. Providing feedback to published protocols is a related goal, but different from the current document’s focus. Two notable examples of published implementation reports are [RFC1369] and [RFC5080].

2. The “Implementation Status” Section

Each Internet-Draft may contain a section entitled “Implementation Status”. This section, if it appears, should be located just before the “Security Considerations” section and contain, for each existing implementation, some or all of the following:

In addition, this section can contain information about the interoperability of any or all of the implementations, including references to test-case descriptions and interoperability reports, when such exist.

Working group chairs and area directors (ADs) are requested to ensure that this section is not used as a marketing venue for specific implementations.

Since this information is necessarily time dependent, it is inappropriate for inclusion in a published RFC. The authors should include a note to the RFC Editor requesting that the section be removed before publication.

2.1. Introductory Text

The following boilerplate text is proposed to head the Implementation Status section:

  This section records the status of known implementations of the
  protocol defined by this specification at the time of posting of
  this Internet-Draft, and is based on a proposal described in RFC
  [[RFC Editor: replace by RFC number]].
  The description of implementations in this section is
  intended to assist the IETF in its decision processes in
  progressing drafts to RFCs.  Please note that the listing of any
  individual implementation here does not imply endorsement by the
  IETF.  Furthermore, no effort has been spent to verify the
  information presented here that was supplied by IETF contributors.
  This is not intended as, and must not be construed to be, a
  catalog of available implementations or their features.  Readers
  are advised to note that other implementations may exist.

  According to RFC [[RFC Editor: replace by RFC number]],
  "this will allow reviewers and working
  groups to assign due consideration to documents that have the
  benefit of running code, which may serve as evidence of valuable
  experimentation and feedback that have made the implemented
  protocols more mature.  It is up to the individual working groups
  to use this information as they see fit".

Authors are requested to add a note to the RFC Editor at the top of this section, advising the Editor to remove the entire section before publication, as well as the reference to RFC [[RFC Editor: replace by RFC number]].

3. Alternative Formats

Sometimes it can be advantageous to publish the implementation status separately from the base Internet-Draft, e.g., on the IETF wiki:

It is highly desirable for all readers of the Internet-Draft to be made aware of this information. Initially, this can be done by replacing the Implementation Status section’s contents with a URL pointing to the wiki. Later, the IETF Tools may support this functionality, e.g., by including such a link in the HTML file of the document, similar to the IPR link.

If the implementation status is published separately from the I-D, then this information needs to be openly available without requiring authentication, registration, or access controls if it is to have any useful effects.

4. Benefits

Publishing the information about implementations provides the working group with several benefits:

We do not specify here whether and to what degree working groups are expected to prefer proposals that have “running code” associated with them, over others that do not.

Working group chairs are invited to suggest this mechanism to document editors in their working groups, and to draw the attention of their working group participants to Implementation Status sections where they exist.

5. Security Considerations

This is a process document; therefore, it does not have a direct effect on the security of any particular IETF protocol. However, better-reviewed protocols are likely to also be more secure.

6. Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Stephen Farrell, who reawakened community interest in this topic. Several reviewers provided important input, including Loa Andersson, Dave Crocker, Ned Freed, Joel M. Halpern, Christer Holmberg, Denis Ovsienko, and Curtis Villamizar.

This document was originally prepared using the lyx2rfc tool, and we would like to thank Nico Williams, its author.

7. Informative References

[RFC1264] Hinden, R., "Internet Engineering Task Force Internet Routing Protocol Standardization Criteria", RFC 1264, DOI 10.17487/RFC1264, October 1991.
[RFC1369] Kastenholz, F., "Implementation Notes and Experience for the Internet Ethernet MIB", RFC 1369, DOI 10.17487/RFC1369, October 1992.
[RFC4794] Fenner, B., "RFC 1264 Is Obsolete", RFC 4794, DOI 10.17487/RFC4794, December 2006.
[RFC5080] Nelson, D. and A. DeKok, "Common Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS) Implementation Issues and Suggested Fixes", RFC 5080, DOI 10.17487/RFC5080, December 2007.
[RFC6982] Sheffer, Y. and A. Farrel, "Improving Awareness of Running Code: The Implementation Status Section", RFC 6982, DOI 10.17487/RFC6982, July 2013.
[Tao] Hoffman, P., ""The Tao of IETF: A Novice's Guide to the Internet Engineering Task Force"", 2012.

Appendix A. Document History

A.1. draft-sheffer-rfc6982bis-02

A.2. draft-sheffer-rfc6982bis-01

A.3. draft-sheffer-rfc6982bis-00

Initial version. RFC 6982 as-is, without the experiment sections.

Authors' Addresses

Yaron Sheffer Intuit EMail: yaronf.ietf@gmail.com
Adrian Farrel Juniper Networks EMail: adrian@olddog.co.uk