Re: Last Call: draft-klensin-norm-ref (Handling Normative References for Standards Track Documents) to BCP

[Jeffrey Hutzelman <jhutz at cmu.edu>]

On Wednesday, February 28, 2007 03:56:44 PM -0500 Eric Rosen 
<erosen at cisco.com> wrote:

> In many  cases (probably  the vast majority)  where a document  is
> advancing despite a "downward normative reference", the referenced
> document (and the technology  described  therein)  is  no  less stable
> than  the  referencing document, and  no "caution" is required.  It's
> great to be able  to "make a downward reference and move on", but  we
> should not be required to tell lies and spread FUD.

Inflammatory language aside, I agree.

> Another alternative, probably a better one, is simply to annotate each
> reference with its standards status, and make no editorial comment about
> it at all.

This sounds like a fine approach to me, for cases where in fact no special 
caution is required.  For the remaining cases, someone can always object to 
approving the document on the basis of an unstable downref and/or ask that 
a warning be inserted.  On the other hand, I don't think any change to the 
document is needed to achieve this.  The next two paragraphs after the one 
you quote say:


  The IESG may, at its discretion, specify the exact text to be used,
  establish procedures regarding the text to use, or give guidance on
  this text.  When establishing procedures the IESG should seek
  appropriate community review.

  These annotations are part of the source document.  If members of the
  community consider either the downward reference or the annotation
  text to be inappropriate, those issues can be raised at any time in
  the document life cycle, just as with any other text in the document.
  There is no separate review on these references.


Also, while I don't think the document necessarily needs to be changed to 
REQUIRE this, I think it would be good if last call announcements continued 
to call out normative downrefs, for two reasons:

(1) To make it easier to catch potentially problematic downrefs
(2) To encourage the advancement of frequently-referenced documents
   along the standards track.

-- Jeff

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