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Checking references for intended status: Best Current Practice ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (See RFCs 3967 and 4897 for information about using normative references to lower-maturity documents in RFCs) -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 1264 (Obsoleted by RFC 4794) -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 6982 (Obsoleted by RFC 7942) Summary: 0 errors (**), 0 flaws (~~), 1 warning (==), 3 comments (--). Run idnits with the --verbose option for more detailed information about the items above. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Network Working Group Y. Sheffer 3 Internet-Draft Intuit 4 Obsoletes: 6982 (if approved) A. Farrel 5 Intended status: Best Current Practice Juniper Networks 6 Expires: October 16, 2016 April 14, 2016 8 Improving Awareness of Running Code: The Implementation Status Section 9 draft-sheffer-rfc6982bis-00 11 Abstract 13 This document describes a simple process that allows authors of 14 Internet-Drafts to record the status of known implementations by 15 including an Implementation Status section. This will allow 16 reviewers and working groups to assign due consideration to documents 17 that have the benefit of running code, which may serve as evidence of 18 valuable experimentation and feedback that have made the implemented 19 protocols more mature. 21 This process is not mandatory. Authors of Internet-Drafts are 22 encouraged to consider using the process for their documents, and 23 working groups are invited to think about applying the process to all 24 of their protocol specifications. This document obsoletes RFC 6982, 25 advancing it to a Best Current Practice. 27 Status of This Memo 29 This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the 30 provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. 32 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 33 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute 34 working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- 35 Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 37 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 38 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 39 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference 40 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 42 This Internet-Draft will expire on October 16, 2016. 44 Copyright Notice 46 Copyright (c) 2016 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the 47 document authors. All rights reserved. 49 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal 50 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents 51 (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of 52 publication of this document. Please review these documents 53 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect 54 to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must 55 include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of 56 the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as 57 described in the Simplified BSD License. 59 Table of Contents 61 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 62 2. The "Implementation Status" Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 63 2.1. Introductory Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 64 3. Alternative Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 65 4. Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 66 5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 67 6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 68 7. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 69 8. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 70 Appendix A. Document History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 71 A.1. draft-sheffer-rfc6982bis-00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 72 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 74 1. Introduction 76 Most IETF participants are familiar with the saying "rough consensus 77 and running code" [Tao] and can identify with its pragmatic approach. 78 However, implementation is not a requirement for publication as an 79 RFC. There are many examples of Internet-Drafts containing protocol 80 specification that have gone through to publication as Proposed 81 Standard RFCs without implementation. Some of them may never get 82 implemented. 84 Over time, a variety of policies have been applied within the IETF to 85 consider running code. In the Routing Area, it used to be a 86 requirement that one or more implementations must exist before an 87 Internet-Draft could be published as a Proposed Standard RFC 88 [RFC1264]. That RFC was later obsoleted and the requirement for 89 implementation was lifted, but each working group was given the 90 authority to impose its own implementation requirements [RFC4794] and 91 at least one working group, Inter-Domain Routing (IDR), continues to 92 require two independent implementations. 94 The hypothesis behind the current document is that there are benefits 95 to the IETF standardization process of producing implementations of 96 protocol specifications before publication as RFCs. These benefits, 97 which include determining that the specification is comprehensible 98 and that there is sufficient interest to implement, are further 99 discussed in Section 4. 101 This document describes a simple mechanism that allows authors of 102 Internet-Drafts to record and publicize the status of known 103 implementations by including an Implementation Status section. The 104 document defines (quite informally) the contents of this section to 105 ensure that the relevant information is included. This will allow 106 reviewers and working groups to assign due consideration to documents 107 that have the benefit of running code, which may serve as evidence of 108 valuable experimentation and feedback that have made the implemented 109 protocols more mature. 111 It is up to the individual working groups to use this information as 112 they see fit, but one result might be the preferential treatment of 113 documents, resulting in them being processed more rapidly. We 114 recommend that the Implementation Status section should be removed 115 from Internet-Drafts before they are published as RFCs. As a result, 116 we do not envisage changes to this section after approval of the 117 document for publication, e.g., the RFC errata process does not 118 apply. 120 This process is not mandatory. Authors of Internet- Drafts are 121 encouraged to consider using the process for their documents, and 122 working groups are invited to think about applying the process to all 123 of their protocol specifications. 125 The scope of this process is all Internet-Drafts (I-Ds) that contain 126 implementable specifications, whether produced within IETF working 127 groups or outside working groups but intended for IETF consensus. 128 I-Ds published on the Independent Stream are explicitly out of scope. 129 It is expected that the greatest benefit will be seen with Standards 130 Track documents developed within working groups. 132 This process was initially proposed as an experiment in [RFC6982]. 133 That document is now obsoleted, and the process advanced to Best 134 Current Practice. 136 2. The "Implementation Status" Section 138 Each Internet-Draft may contain a section entitled "Implementation 139 Status". This section, if it appears, should be located just before 140 the "Security Considerations" section and contain, for each existing 141 implementation, some or all of the following: 143 - The organization responsible for the implementation, if any. 145 - The implementation's name and/or a link to a web page describing 146 the implementation. 148 - A brief general description. 150 - The implementation's level of maturity: research, prototype, 151 alpha, beta, production, widely used, etc. 153 - Coverage: which parts of the protocol specification are 154 implemented and which versions of the Internet-Draft were 155 implemented. 157 - Licensing: the terms under which the implementation can be used. 158 For example: proprietary, royalty licensing, freely distributable 159 with acknowledgement (BSD style), freely distributable with 160 requirement to redistribute source (General Public License (GPL) 161 style), and other (specify). 163 - Implementation experience: any useful information the implementers 164 want to share with the community. 166 - Contact information: ideally a person's name and email address, 167 but possibly just a URL or mailing list. 169 In addition, this section can contain information about the 170 interoperability of any or all of the implementations, including 171 references to test-case descriptions and interoperability reports, 172 when such exist. 174 Working group chairs and area directors (ADs) are requested to ensure 175 that this section is not used as a marketing venue for specific 176 implementations. 178 Since this information is necessarily time dependent, it is 179 inappropriate for inclusion in a published RFC. The authors should 180 include a note to the RFC Editor requesting that the section be 181 removed before publication. 183 2.1. Introductory Text 185 The following boilerplate text is proposed to head the Implementation 186 Status section: 188 This section records the status of known implementations of the 189 protocol defined by this specification at the time of posting of 190 this Internet-Draft, and is based on a proposal described in RFC 191 [[RFC Editor: replace by RFC number]]. 192 The description of implementations in this section is 193 intended to assist the IETF in its decision processes in 194 progressing drafts to RFCs. Please note that the listing of any 195 individual implementation here does not imply endorsement by the 196 IETF. Furthermore, no effort has been spent to verify the 197 information presented here that was supplied by IETF contributors. 198 This is not intended as, and must not be construed to be, a 199 catalog of available implementations or their features. Readers 200 are advised to note that other implementations may exist. 202 According to RFC [[RFC Editor: replace by RFC number]], 203 "this will allow reviewers and working 204 groups to assign due consideration to documents that have the 205 benefit of running code, which may serve as evidence of valuable 206 experimentation and feedback that have made the implemented 207 protocols more mature. It is up to the individual working groups 208 to use this information as they see fit". 210 Authors are requested to add a note to the RFC Editor at the top of 211 this section, advising the Editor to remove the entire section before 212 publication, as well as the reference to RFC [[RFC Editor: replace by 213 RFC number]]. 215 3. Alternative Formats 217 Sometimes it can be advantageous to publish the implementation status 218 separately from the base Internet-Draft, e.g., on the IETF wiki: 220 - When the Implementation Status section becomes too large to be 221 conveniently managed within the document. 223 - When a working group decides to have implementors, rather than 224 authors, keep the status of their implementations current. 226 - When a working group already maintains an active wiki and prefers 227 to use it for this purpose. 229 - If the working group decides that the information is still 230 valuable (and needs to be kept current) after the I-D is published 231 as an RFC, and the Implementation Status section had been removed 232 from it. 234 It is highly desirable for all readers of the Internet-Draft to be 235 made aware of this information. Initially, this can be done by 236 replacing the Implementation Status section's contents with a URL 237 pointing to the wiki. Later, the IETF Tools may support this 238 functionality, e.g., by including such a link in the HTML file of the 239 document, similar to the IPR link. 241 If the implementation status is published separately from the I-D, 242 then this information needs to be openly available without requiring 243 authentication, registration, or access controls if it is to have any 244 useful effects. 246 4. Benefits 248 Publishing the information about implementations provides the working 249 group with several benefits: 251 - Working group members, chairs, and ADs may use the information 252 provided to help prioritize the progress of I-Ds, e.g., when there 253 are several competing proposals to solve a particular problem. 255 - Similarly, the information is useful when deciding whether the 256 document should be progressed on a different track (individual 257 submission, Experimental, etc.). 259 - Making this information public and an explicit part of WG 260 deliberations will motivate participants to implement protocol 261 proposals, which in turn helps in discovering protocol flaws at an 262 early stage. 264 - Other participants can use the software to evaluate the usefulness 265 of protocol features, its correctness (to some degree), and other 266 properties, such as resilience and scalability. 268 - WG members may choose to perform interoperability testing with 269 known implementations, especially when they are publicly 270 available. 272 - In the case of open source, people may want to study the code to 273 better understand the protocol and its limitations, determine if 274 the implementation matches the protocol specification, and whether 275 the protocol specification has omissions or ambiguities. 277 - And lastly, some protocol features may be hard to understand, and 278 for such features, the mere assurance that they can be implemented 279 is beneficial. We note though that code should never be used in 280 lieu of a clear specification. 282 We do not specify here whether and to what degree working groups are 283 expected to prefer proposals that have "running code" associated with 284 them, over others that do not. 286 The inclusion of Implementation Status sections in Internet-Drafts is 287 not mandatory, but the authors of this document wish to encourage 288 authors of other Internet-Drafts to try out this simple mechanism to 289 discover whether it is useful. Working group chairs are invited to 290 suggest this mechanism to document editors in their working groups, 291 and to draw the attention of their working group participants to 292 Implementation Status sections where they exist. 294 5. Security Considerations 296 This is a process document; therefore, it does not have a direct 297 effect on the security of any particular IETF protocol. However, 298 better-reviewed protocols are likely to also be more secure. 300 6. IANA Considerations 302 This document specifies no IANA actions. 304 7. Acknowledgements 306 We would like to thank Stephen Farrell, who reawakened community 307 interest in this topic. Several reviewers provided important input, 308 including Loa Andersson, Dave Crocker, Ned Freed, Christer Holmberg, 309 Denis Ovsienko, and Curtis Villamizar. 311 This document was originally prepared using the lyx2rfc tool, and we 312 would like to thank Nico Williams, its author. 314 8. Informative References 316 [RFC1264] Hinden, R., "Internet Engineering Task Force Internet 317 Routing Protocol Standardization Criteria", RFC 1264, 318 DOI 10.17487/RFC1264, October 1991, 319 . 321 [RFC4794] Fenner, B., "RFC 1264 Is Obsolete", RFC 4794, 322 DOI 10.17487/RFC4794, December 2006, 323 . 325 [RFC6982] Sheffer, Y. and A. Farrel, "Improving Awareness of Running 326 Code: The Implementation Status Section", RFC 6982, 327 DOI 10.17487/RFC6982, July 2013, 328 . 330 [Tao] Hoffman, P., ""The Tao of IETF: A Novice's Guide to the 331 Internet Engineering Task Force"", 2012, 332 . 334 Appendix A. Document History 336 A.1. draft-sheffer-rfc6982bis-00 338 Initial version. RFC 6982 as-is, without the experiment sections. 340 Authors' Addresses 342 Yaron Sheffer 343 Intuit 345 EMail: yaronf.ietf@gmail.com 347 Adrian Farrel 348 Juniper Networks 350 EMail: adrian@olddog.co.uk