Network Working Group S. Bradner
Internet-Draft Harvard University
Editor
September 1995
The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3
a proposed revision of part of RFC 1602
<draft-ietf-poised95-std-proc-3-00.txt>
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft. Internet-Drafts are working
documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas,
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Abstract
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Table of Contents
Status of this Memo.................................................1
Abstract............................................................1
1. INTRODUCTION.....................................................
1.1 Internet Standards............................................
1.2 The Internet Standards Process................................
1.3 Organization of This Document.................................
2. INTERNET STANDARDS-RELATED PUBLICATIONS..........................
2.1 Requests for Comments (RFCs)..................................
2.2 Internet-Drafts...............................................
2.3 Notices and Record Keeping....................................
3. INTERNET STANDARD SPECIFICATIONS.................................
3.1 Technical Specification (TS)..................................
3.2 Applicability Statement (AS)..................................
3.3 Requirement Levels............................................
4. THE INTERNET STANDARDS TRACK.....................................
4.1 Standards Track Maturity Levels...............................
4.1.1 Proposed Standard.........................................
4.1.2 Draft Standard............................................
4.1.3 Internet Standard.........................................
4.2 Non-Standards Track Maturity Levels...........................
4.2.1 Experimental..............................................
4.2.2 Informational.............................................
4.2.3 Procedures for Experimental and Informational RFCs........
4.2.4 Historic..................................................
5. THE INTERNET STANDARDS PROCESS...................................
5.1 Standards Actions.............................................
5.1.1 Initiation of Action......................................
5.1.2 IESG Review and Approval..................................
5.1.3 Publication...............................................
5.2 Entering the Standards Track..................................
5.3 Advancing in the Standards Track..............................
5.4 Revising a Standard...........................................
5.5 Retiring a Standard...........................................
5.6 Conflict Resolution and Appeals...............................
6. BEST CURRENT PRACTICE (BCP) RFCs.................................
6.1 BCP Review Process............................................
7. EXTERNAL STANDARDS AND SPECIFICATIONS............................
8. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS.....................................
8.1. General Policy...............................................
8.2 Confidentiality Obligations..................................
8.3. Rights and Permissions.......................................
8.3.1. All Contributions.........................................
8.4.2. Standards Track Documents.................................
8.4.3 Determination of Reasonable and
Non-discriminatory Terms..................................
8.5. Notices......................................................
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9. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..................................................
10. SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS..........................................
11. REFERENCES.......................................................
12 .AUTHORS' ADDRESS.................................................
APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS.....................................
1. INTRODUCTION
This memo documents the process currently used by the Internet
community for the standardization of protocols and procedures. The
Internet Standards process is an activity of the Internet Society
that is organized and managed on behalf of the Internet community by
the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the Internet Engineering
Steering Group.
1.1 Internet Standards
The Internet, a loosely-organized international collaboration of
autonomous, interconnected networks, supports host-to-host
communication through voluntary adherence to open protocols and
procedures defined by Internet Standards. There are also many
isolated internets, i.e., sets of interconnected networks, which are
not connected to the Internet but use the Internet Standards.
The Internet standards process described in this document is
concerned with all protocols, procedures, and conventions that are
used in or by the Internet, whether or not they are part of the
TCP/IP protocol suite. In the case of protocols developed and/or
standardized by non-Internet organizations, however, the Internet
standards process may apply only to the application of the protocol
or procedure in the Internet context, not to the specification of the
protocol itself.
In general, an Internet Standard is a specification that is stable
and well-understood, is technically competent, has multiple,
independent, and interoperable implementations with substantial
operational experience, enjoys significant public support, and is
recognizably useful in some or all parts of the Internet.
1.2 The Internet Standards Process
In outline, the process of creating an Internet Standard is
straightforward: a specification undergoes a period of development
and several iterations of review by the Internet community and
revision based upon experience, is adopted as a Standard by the
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appropriate body (see below), and is published. In practice, the
process is more complicated, due to (1) the difficulty of creating
specifications of high technical quality; (2) the need to consider
the interests of all of the affected parties; (3) the importance of
establishing widespread community consensus; and (4) the difficulty
of evaluating the utility of a particular specification for the
Internet community.
The goals of the Internet standards process are:
o technical excellence;
o prior implementation and testing;
o clear, short, and easily understandable documentation;
o openness and fairness; and
o timeliness.
The procedures described in this document are designed to be fair,
open, and objective; to reflect existing (proven) practice; and to
be flexible.
o These procedures are intended to provide a fair, open, and
objective basis for developing, evaluating, and adopting Internet
Standards. They provide ample opportunity for participation and
comment by all interested parties. At each stage of the
standardization process, a specification is repeatedly discussed
and its merits debated in open meetings and/or public electronic
mailing lists, and it is made available for review via world-wide
on-line directories.
o These procedures are explicitly aimed at recognizing and adopting
generally-accepted practices. Thus, a candidate specification
must be implemented and tested for correct operation and
interoperability by multiple independent parties and utilized in
increasingly demanding environments, before it can be adopted as
an Internet Standard.
o These procedures provide a great deal of flexibility to adapt to
the wide variety of circumstances that occur in the
standardization process. Experience has shown this flexibility to
be vital in achieving the goals listed above.
The goal of technical competence, the requirement for prior
implementation and testing, and the need to allow all interested
parties to comment all require significant time and effort. On the
other hand, today's rapid development of networking technology
demands timely development of standards. The Internet standards
process is intended to balance these conflicting goals. The process
is believed to be as short and simple as possible without sacrificing
technical excellence, thorough testing before adoption of a standard,
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or openness and fairness.
From its inception, the Internet has been, and is expected to remain,
an evolving system whose participants regularly factor new
requirements and technology into its design and implementation. Users
of the Internet and providers of the equipment, software, and
services that support it should anticipate and embrace this evolution
as a major tenet of Internet philosophy.
The procedures described in this document are the result of a number
of years of evolution, driven both by the needs of the growing and
increasingly diverse Internet community, and by experience.
1.3 Organization of This Document
Section 2 describes the publications and archives of the Internet
standards process, and specifies the requirements for record-keeping
and public access to information. Section 3 describes the Internet
standards track. Section 4 describes the types of Internet standard
specification. Section 5 describes the process and rules for Internet
standardization. Section 6 specifies the way in which externally-
sponsored specifications and practices, developed and controlled by
other standards bodies or by vendors, are handled within the Internet
standards process. Section 7 presents the rules that are required to
protect intellectual property rights in the context of the
development and use of Internet Standards. Section 8 contains a list
of numbered references.
Appendix A contains a list of frequently-used acronyms.
2. INTERNET STANDARDS-RELATED PUBLICATIONS
2.1 Requests for Comments (RFCs)
Each distinct version of an Internet standards-related specification
is published as part of the "Request for Comments" (RFC) document
series. This archival series is the official publication channel for
Internet standards documents and other publications of the IESG, IAB,
and Internet community. RFCs can be obtained from a number of
Internet hosts using anonymous FTP, gopher, World Wide Web, and other
Internet document-retrieval systems.
The RFC series of documents on networking began in 1969 as part of
the original ARPA wide-area networking (ARPANET) project (see
Appendix A for glossary of acronyms). RFCs cover a wide range of
topics, from early discussion of new research concepts to status
memos about the Internet. RFC publication direct responsibility of
the RFC Editor, under the general direction of the IAB.
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The rules for formatting and submitting an RFC are defined in [5].
Every RFC is available in ASCII text. Some RFCs are also available
in PostScript(R). The PostScript(R) version of an RFC may contain
material (such as diagrams and figures) that is not present in the
ASCII version, and it may be formatted differently.
*********************************************************
* *
* A stricter requirement applies to standards-track *
* specifications: the ASCII text version is the *
* definitive reference, and therefore it must be a *
* complete and accurate specification of the standard, *
* including all necessary diagrams and illustrations. *
* *
*********************************************************
The status of Internet protocol and service specifications is
summarized periodically in an RFC entitled "Internet Official
Protocol Standards" [1]. This RFC shows the level of maturity and
other helpful information for each Internet protocol or service
specification (see section 3).
Some RFCs document Internet Standards. These RFCs form the 'STD'
subseries of the RFC series [4]. When a specification has been
adopted as an Internet Standard, it is given the additional label
"STDxxx", but it keeps its RFC number and its place in the RFC
series.
Some RFCs describe best current practices for the Internet community
These RFCs form the 'BCP' (Best Current Practice) subseries of the
RFC series. [7] When a specification has been adopted as a BCP, it
is given the additional label "BCPxxx", but it keeps its RFC number
and its place in the RFC series.
Not all specifications of protocols or services for the Internet
should or will become Internet Standards or BCPs. Such non-standards
track specifications are not subject to the rules for Internet
standardization. Non-standards track specifications may be published
directly as "Experimental" or "Informational" RFCs at the discretion
of the RFC editor in consultation with the IESG (see section 4.2).
********************************************************
* *
* It is important to remember that not all RFCs *
* are standards track documents, and that not all *
* standards track documents reach the level of *
* Internet Standard. In the same way, not all RFCs *
* which describe current practices have been given *
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* the review and approval to become BCPs. *
* *
********************************************************
2.2 Internet-Drafts
During the development of a specification, draft versions of the
document are made available for informal review and comment by
placing them in the IETF's "Internet-Drafts" directory, which is
replicated on a number of Internet hosts. This makes an evolving
working document readily available to a wide audience, facilitating
the process of review and revision.
An Internet-Draft that is published as an RFC, or that has remained
unchanged in the Internet-Drafts directory for more than six months
without being recommended by the IESG for publication as an RFC, is
simply removed from the Internet-Drafts directory. At any time, an
Internet-Draft may be replaced by a more recent version of the same
specification, restarting the six-month timeout period.
An Internet-Draft may be related to the activity of a specific IETF
working group or be an unrelated contribution. To assist in the
locating of all the Internet-Drafts relevant to a particular working
group the Internet-Drafts archive is organized into separate
subdirectories, one for each active working group and an additional
one for unrelated contributions. Internet-Drafts submitted as
relevant to a particular working group are placed into the directory
named for the working group.
Internet-Drafts can also be seen as 1/ products of, or adoptions of,
a working group, i.e., the working group wishes to endorse the
contents of the Internet-Draft, or, 2/ as submissions for
consideration by a working group. These are differentiated in the
archive by the use of the working group name as the first part of the
filename in the first case and the use of the 1st author's name in
the second case. The appropriate designation is the discretion
working group chair(s).
An Internet-Draft is NOT a means of "publishing" a specification;
specifications are published through the RFC mechanism described in
the previous section. Internet-Drafts have no formal status, and are
subject to change or removal at any time.
********************************************************
* *
* Under no circumstances should an Internet-Draft *
* be referenced by any paper, report, or Request- *
* for-Proposal, nor should a vendor claim compliance *
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* with an Internet-Draft. *
* *
********************************************************
Note: It is acceptable to reference a standards-track specification
that may reasonably be expected to be published as an RFC using the
phrase "Work in Progress" without referencing an Internet-Draft.
This may also be done in a standards track document itself as long
as the specification in which the reference is made would stand as a
complete and understandable document with or without the reference to
the "Work in Progress".
2.3 Notices and Record Keeping
Each of the organizations involved in the development and approval of
Internet Standards shall publicly announce, and shall maintain a
publicly accessible record of, every activity in which it engages, to
the extent that the activity represents the prosecution of any part
of the Internet standards process. For purposes of this section, the
organizations involved in the development and approval of Internet
Standards includes the IETF, the IESG, the IAB, all IETF working
groups, and the Internet Society board of trustees.
For IETF and working group meetings announcements shall be made by
electronic mail to the IETF mailing list and shall be made
sufficiently far in advance of the activity to permit all interested
parties to effectively participate. The announcement shall contain
(or provide pointers to) all of the information that is necessary to
support the participation of any interested individual. In the case
of a meeting, for example, the announcement shall include an agenda
that specifies the standards-related issues that will be discussed.
The formal record of an organization's standards-related activity
shall include at least the following:
o the charter of the organization (or a defining document equivalent
to a charter);
o complete and accurate minutes of meetings;
o working group electronic mail mailing lists pertain to the; and
o all written contributions (in paper or electronic form) from
participants that pertain to the organization's standards-related
activity.
As a practical matter, the formal record of all Internet standards
process activities is maintained by the IETF Secretariat, and is the
responsibility of the Executive Director of the IETF. The entire
record is available to any interested party upon request to the
Executive Director. Internet drafts that have been removed (for any
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reason) from the internet-drafts directories shall be archived by the
IETF Secretariat for the sole purpose of preserving an historical
record of Internet standards activity and thus are not retrievable
except in special circumstances.
3. INTERNET STANDARD SPECIFICATIONS
Specifications subject to the Internet standards process fall into
one of two categories: Technical Specification (TS) and
Applicability Statement (AS).
3.1 Technical Specification (TS)
A Technical Specification is any description of a protocol, service,
procedure, convention, or format. It may completely describe all of
the relevant aspects of its subject, or it may leave one or more
parameters or options unspecified. A TS may be completely self-
contained, or it may incorporate material from other specifications
by reference to other documents (which may or may not be Internet
Standards).
A TS shall include a statement of its scope and the general intent
for its use (domain of applicability). Thus, a TS that is inherently
specific to a particular context shall contain a statement to that
effect. However, a TS does not specify requirements for its use
within the Internet; these requirements, which depend on the
particular context in which the TS is incorporated by different
system configurations, are defined by an Applicability Statement.
3.2 Applicability Statement (AS)
An Applicability Statement specifies how, and under what
circumstances, one or more TSs may be applied to support a particular
Internet capability. An AS may specify uses for TSs that are not
Internet Standards, as discussed in Section 6.
An AS identifies the relevant TSs and the specific way in which they
are to be combined, and may also specify particular values or ranges
of TS parameters or subfunctions of a TS protocol that must be
implemented. An AS also specifies the circumstances in which the use
of a particular TS is required, recommended, or elective (see section
3.3).
An AS may describe particular methods of using a TS in a restricted
"domain of applicability", such as Internet routers, terminal
servers, Internet systems that interface to Ethernets, or datagram-
based database servers.
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The broadest type of AS is a comprehensive conformance specification,
commonly called a "requirements document", for a particular class of
Internet systems, such as Internet routers or Internet hosts.
An AS may not have a higher maturity level in the standards track
than any standards-track TS on which the AS relies (see section 5.1).
For example, a TS at Draft Standard level may be referenced by an AS
at the Proposed Standard or Draft Standard level, but not by an AS at
the Standard level.
An AS may refer to a TS that is either a standards-track
specification or is "Informational", but not to a TS with a maturity
level of "Experimental" or "Historic" (see section 4.2).
3.3 Requirement Levels
An AS shall apply one of the following "requirement levels" to each
of the TSs to which it refers:
(a) Required: Implementation of the referenced TS, as specified by
the AS, is required to achieve minimal conformance. For example,
IP and ICMP must be implemented by all Internet systems using the
TCP/IP Protocol Suite.
(b) Recommended: Implementation of the referenced TS is not
required for minimal conformance, but experience and/or generally
accepted technical wisdom suggest its desirability in the domain
of applicability of the AS. Vendors are strongly encouraged to
include the functions, features, and protocols of Recommended TSs
in their products, and should omit them only if the omission is
justified by some special circumstance.
(c) Elective: Implementation of the referenced TS is optional
within the domain of applicability of the AS; that is, the AS
creates no explicit necessity to apply the TS. However, a
particular vendor may decide to implement it, or a particular user
may decide that it is a necessity in a specific environment.
As noted in section 3.2, there are TSs that are not in the
standards track or that have been retired from the standards
track, and are therefore not required, recommended, or elective.
Two additional "requirement level" designations are available for
these TSs:
(d) Limited Use: The TS is considered to be appropriate for use
only in limited or unique circumstances. For example, the usage
of a protocol with the "Experimental" designation should generally
be limited to those actively involved with the experiment.
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(e) Not Recommended: A TS that is considered to be inappropriate
for general use is labeled "Not Recommended". This may be because
of its limited functionality, specialized nature, or historic
status.
Although TSs and ASs are conceptually separate, in practice a
standards-track document may combine an AS and one or more related
TSs. For example, Technical Specifications that are developed
specifically and exclusively for some particular domain of
applicability, e.g., for mail server hosts, often contain within a
single specification all of the relevant AS and TS information. In
such cases, no useful purpose would be served by deliberately
distributing the information among several documents just to preserve
the formal AS/TS distinction. However, a TS that is likely to apply
to more than one domain of applicability should be developed in a
modular fashion, to facilitate its incorporation by multiple ASs.
The "Official Protocol Standards" RFC lists a general requirement
level for each TS, using the nomenclature defined in this section.
This RFC is updated periodically. In many cases, more detailed
descriptions of the requirement levels of particular protocols and of
individual features of the protocols will be found in appropriate
ASs.
4. THE INTERNET STANDARDS TRACK
Specifications that are intended to become Internet Standards evolve
through a set of maturity levels known as the "standards track".
These maturity levels -- "Proposed Standard", "Draft Standard", and
"Standard" -- are defined and discussed in section 4.1. The way in
which specifications move along the standards track is described in
section 5.
Even after a specification has been adopted as an Internet Standard,
further evolution often occurs based on experience and the
recognition of new requirements. The nomenclature and procedures of
Internet standardization provide for the replacement of old Internet
Standards with new ones, and the assignment of descriptive labels to
indicate the status of "retired" Internet Standards. A set of
maturity levels is defined in section 4.2 to cover these and other
specifications that are not considered to be on the standards track.
4.1 Standards Track Maturity Levels
Internet specifications go through stages of development, testing,
and acceptance. Within the Internet standards process, these stages
are formally labeled "maturity levels".
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This section describes the maturity levels and the expected
characteristics of specifications at each level.
4.1.1 Proposed Standard
The entry-level maturity for the standards track is "Proposed
Standard". A specific action by the IESG is required to move a
specification onto the standards track at the "Proposed Standard"
level (see section 5).
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. However, further experience
might result in a change or even retraction of the specification
before it advances.
Usually, neither implementation nor operational experience is
required for the designation of a specification as a Proposed
Standard. However, such experience is highly desirable, and will
usually represent a strong argument in favor of a Proposed Standard
designation.
The IESG may require implementation and/or operational experience
prior to granting Proposed Standard status to a specification that
materially affects the core Internet protocols or that specifies
behavior that may have significant operational impact on the
Internet. Typically, such a specification will be published
initially with Experimental status (see section 4.2.1), and moved to
the standards track only after sufficient implementation or
operational experience has been obtained.
A Proposed Standard should have no known technical omissions with
respect to the requirements placed upon it. However, the IESG may
waive this requirement in order to allow a specification to advance
to the Proposed Standard state when it is considered to be useful and
necessary (and timely) even with known technical omissions.
Implementors should treat Proposed Standards as immature
specifications. It is desirable to implement them in order to gain
experience and to validate, test, and clarify the specification.
However, since the content of Proposed Standards may be changed if
problems are found or better solutions are identified, deploying
implementations of such standards into a disruption-sensitive
customer base is not recommended.
4.1.2 Draft Standard
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A specification from which at least two independent and interoperable
implementations from different code bases, and for which sufficient
successful operational experience has been obtained, may be elevated
to the "Draft Standard" level. If patented or otherwise controlled
technology is required for implementation, the separate
implementations must also have resulted from separate exercise of the
licensing process. This is a major advance in status, indicating a
strong belief that the specification is mature and will be useful.
The requirement for at least two independent and interoperable
implementations applies to all of the options and features of the
specification. In cases in which one or more options or features
have not been demonstrated in at least two interoperable
implementations, the specification may advance to the Draft Standard
level only if those options or features are removed.
A Draft Standard must be well-understood and known to be quite
stable, both in its semantics and as a basis for developing an
implementation. A Draft Standard may still require additional or
more widespread field experience, since it is possible for
implementations based on Draft Standard specifications to demonstrate
unforeseen behavior when subjected to large-scale use in production
environments.
A Draft Standard is normally considered to be a final specification,
and changes are likely to be made only to solve specific problems
encountered. In most circumstances, it is reasonable for vendors to
deploy implementations of draft standards into the customer base.
4.1.3 Internet Standard
A specification for which significant implementation and successful
operational experience has been obtained may be elevated to the
Internet Standard level. An Internet Standard (which may simply be
referred to as a Standard) is characterized by a high degree of
technical maturity and by a generally held belief that the specified
protocol or service provides significant benefit to the Internet
community.
4.2 Non-Standards Track Maturity Levels
Not every TS or AS is on the standards track. A TS may not be
intended to be an Internet Standard, or it may be intended for
eventual standardization but not yet ready to enter the standards
track. A TS or AS may have been superseded by a more recent Internet
Standard, or have otherwise fallen into disuse or disfavor.
Specifications that are not on the standards track are labeled with
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one of three "off-track" maturity levels: "Experimental",
"Informational", or "Historic". There are no time limits associated
with these non-standards track labels, and the documents bearing
these labels are not Internet Standards in any sense.
4.2.1 Experimental
The "Experimental" designation on a TS typically denotes a
specification that is part of some research or development effort.
Such a specification is published for the general information of the
Internet technical community and as an archival record of the work,
subject only to editorial considerations and to verification that
there has been adequate coordination with the standards process (see
below). An Experimental specification may be the output of an
organized Internet research effort (e.g., a Research Group of the
IRTF), an IETF working group, or it may be an individual
contribution.
4.2.2 Informational
An "Informational" specification is published for the general
information of the Internet community, and does not represent an
Internet community consensus or recommendation. The Informational
designation is intended to provide for the timely publication of a
very broad range of responsible informational documents from many
sources, subject only to editorial considerations and to verification
that there has been adequate coordination with the standards process
(see below).
Specifications that have been prepared outside of the Internet
community and are not incorporated into the Internet standards
process by any of the provisions of section 6 may be published as
Informational RFCs, with the permission of the owner and the
concurrence of the RFC Editor.
4.2.3 Procedures for Experimental and Informational RFCs
Unless they are the result of IETF working group action, documents
intended to be published with Experimental or Informational status
should be submitted directly to the RFC Editor . The RFC Editor will
publish any such documents as Internet-Drafts which have not already
been so published. In order to differentiate these Internet-Drafts
the filename will include "-rfced-". The RFC Editor will wait two
weeks after this publication for comments before proceeding further.
The RFC Editor is expected to exercise his or her judgment concerning
the editorial suitability of a document for publication with
Experimental or Informational status, and may refuse to publish a
document which, in the expert opinion of the RFC Editor, falls below
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the technical and/or editorial standard for RFCs.
To ensure that the non-standards track Experimental and Informational
designations are not misused to circumvent the Internet standards
process, the IESG and the RFC Editor have agreed that the RFC Editor
will refer to the IESG any document submitted for Experimental or
Informational publication which, in the opinion of the RFC Editor,
may be related to, or of interest to, the IETF community. The IESG
shall review such a referred document within a reasonable period of
time, and recommend either that it be published as originally
submitted or referred to the IETF as a contribution to the Internet
standards process.
If (a) the IESG recommends that the document be brought within the
IETF and progressed within the IETF context, but the author declines
to do so, or (b) the IESG considers that the document proposes
something that conflicts with, or is actually inimical to, an
established IETF effort, the document may still be published as an
Experimental or Informational RFC. In these cases, however, the IESG
may insert appropriate "disclaimer" text into the RFC either in or
immediately following the "Status of this Memo" section in order to
make the circumstances of its publication clear to readers.
Documents proposed for Experimental and Informational RFCs by IETF
working groups go through IESG review. The review is initiated using
the process described in section 5.1.1.
4.2.4 Historic
A TS or AS that has been superseded by a more recent specification or
is for any other reason considered to be obsolete is assigned to the
"Historic" level. (Purists have suggested that the word should be
"Historical"; however, at this point the use of "Historic" is
historical.)
5. THE INTERNET STANDARDS PROCESS
The mechanics of the Internet standards process involve decisions of
the IESG concerning the elevation of a specification onto the
standards track or the movement of a standards-track specification
from one maturity level to another. Although a number of reasonably
objective criteria (described below and in section 5) are available
to guide the IESG in making a decision to move a specification onto,
along, or off the standards track, there is no algorithmic guarantee
of elevation to or progression along the standards track for any
specification. The experienced collective judgment of the IESG
concerning the technical quality of a specification proposed for
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elevation to or advancement in the standards track is an essential
component of the decision-making process.
5.1 Standards Actions
A "standards action" -- entering a particular specification into,
advancing it within, or removing it from, the standards track -- must
be approved by the IESG.
5.1.1 Initiation of Action
A standards action is initiated by a recommendation to the
appropriate IETF Area Director or to the IESG as a whole by the
individual or group that is responsible for the specification
(usually an IETF Working Group).
A specification that is intended to enter or advance in the Internet
standards track shall first be posted as an Internet-Draft (see
section 2.2), by sending the document in an electronic mail message
to the Internet-Drafts address at the IETF Secretariat. It shall
remain as an Internet-Draft for a period of time, not less than two
weeks, that permits useful community review, after which it may be
submitted to the IESG with a recommendation for action by sending an
electronic mail message to the Executive Director of the IETF, with a
copy to the relevant Area Director if any, specifying the name of the
document and the recommended action.
5.1.2 IESG Review and Approval
The IESG shall determine whether or not a specification submitted to
it according to section 5.1.1 satisfies the applicable criteria for
the recommended action (see sections 5.3 and 5.4), and shall in
addition determine whether or not the technical quality and clarity
of the specification comports with that expected for the maturity
level to which the specification is recommended.
In order to obtain all of the information necessary to make these
determinations, particularly when the specification is considered by
the IESG to be extremely important in terms of its potential impact
on the Internet or on the suite of Internet protocols, the IESG may,
at its discretion, commission an independent technical review of the
specification. Such a review shall be commissioned whenever the
circumstances surrounding a recommended standards action are
considered by the IESG to require a broader basis than is normally
available from the IESG itself for agreement within the Internet
community that the specification is ready for advancement. The IESG
shall communicate the findings of any such review to the IETF.
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The IESG will send notice to the IETF of the pending IESG
consideration of the document(s) to permit a final review by the
general Internet community. This "Last-Call" notification shall be
via electronic mail to the IETF mailing list. Comments on a Last-
Call shall be accepted from anyone, and should be sent to the IESG
with a copy to Executive Director of the IETF.
In a timely fashion, but no sooner than two weeks after issuing the
Last-Call notification to the IETF mailing list, the IESG shall make
its final determination of whether or not to approve the standards
action, and shall notify the IETF of its decision via electronic mail
to the IETF mailing list. In those cases in which the IESG believes
that the community interest would be served by allowing more time for
comment, it may decide to explicitly lengthen the Last-Call period.
In those cases in which the proposed standards action involves a
document for which no corresponding IETF working group is currently
active, the Last-Call period shall be no shorter than four weeks.
5.1.3 Publication
Following IESG approval and any necessary editorial work, the RFC
Editor shall publish the specification as an RFC. The specification
shall at that point be removed from the Internet-Drafts directory.
An official summary of standards actions completed and pending shall
appear in each issue of the Internet Society Newsletter. This shall
constitute the "publication of record" for Internet standards
actions. In addition, the IESG shall publish a monthly summary of
standards actions completed and pending in the Internet Monthly
Report.
Finally, the RFC Editor shall publish periodically an "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" RFC [1], summarizing the status of all
Internet protocol and service specifications, both within and outside
the standards track.
5.2 Entering the Standards Track
A specification that is potentially an Internet Standard may
originate from:
(a) an ISOC-sponsored effort (typically an IETF Working Group),
(b) independent activity by individuals, or
(c) an external organization.
Case (a) accounts for the great majority of specifications that enter
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the standards track. In cases (b) and (c), the work might be tightly
integrated with the work of an existing IETF Working Group, or it
might be offered for standardization without prior IETF involvement.
In most cases, a specification resulting from an effort that took
place outside of an IETF Working Group will be submitted to an
appropriate Working Group for evaluation and refinement. If
necessary, an appropriate Working Group will be created.
For externally-developed specifications that are well-integrated with
existing Working Group efforts, a Working Group is assumed to afford
adequate community review of the accuracy and applicability of the
specification. If a Working Group is unable to resolve all technical
and usage questions, additional independent review may be necessary.
Such reviews may be done within a Working Group context, or by an ad
hoc review committee established specifically for that purpose. Ad
hoc review committees may also be convened in other circumstances
when the nature of review required is too small to require the
formality of Working Group creation. It is the responsibility of the
appropriate IETF Area Director to determine what, if any, review of
an external specification is needed and how it shall be conducted.
5.3 Advancing in the Standards Track
The procedure described in section 5.1 is followed for each action
that attends the advancement of a specification along the standards
track.
A specification shall remain at the Proposed Standard level for at
least six (6) months.
A specification shall remain at the Draft Standard level for at least
four (4) months, or until at least one IETF meeting has occurred,
whichever comes later.
These minimum periods are intended to ensure adequate opportunity for
community review without severely impacting timeliness. These
intervals shall be measured from the date of publication of the
corresponding RFC(s), or, if the action does not result in RFC
publication, the date of IESG approval of the action.
A specification may be (indeed, is likely to be) revised as it
advances through the standards track. At each stage, the IESG shall
determine the scope and significance of the revision to the
specification, and, if necessary and appropriate, modify the
recommended action. Minor revisions are expected, but a significant
revision may require that the specification accumulate more
experience at its current maturity level before progressing. Finally,
if the specification has been changed very significantly, the IESG
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may recommend that the revision be treated as a new document, re-
entering the standards track at the beginning.
Change of status shall result in republication of the specification
as an RFC, except in the rare case that there have been no changes at
all in the specification since the last publication. Generally,
desired changes will be "batched" for incorporation at the next level
in the standards track. However, deferral of changes to the next
standards action on the specification will not always be possible or
desirable; for example, an important typographical error, or a
technical error that does not represent a change in overall function
of the specification, may need to be corrected immediately. In such
cases, the IESG or RFC Editor may be asked to republish the RFC (with
a new number) with corrections, and this will not reset the minimum
time-at-level clock.
When a standards-track specification has not reached the Internet
Standard level but has remained at the same maturity level for
twenty-four (24) months, and every twelve (12) months thereafter
until the status is changed, the IESG shall review the viability of
the standardization effort responsible for that specification and the
usefulness of the technology. Following each such review, the IESG
shall approve termination or continuation of the development, at the
same time the IESG shall decide to maintain the specification at the
same maturity level or to move it to Historic status. This decision
shall be communicated to the IETF by electronic mail to the IETF
mailing list to allow the Internet community an opportunity to
comment. This provision is not intended to threaten a legitimate and
active Working Group effort, but rather to provide an administrative
mechanism for terminating a moribund effort.
5.4 Revising a Standard
A new version of an established Internet Standard must progress
through the full Internet standardization process as if it were a
completely new specification. (Sections 5.1 and 5.3) Once the new
version has reached the Standard level, it will usually replace the
previous version, which will move to Historic status. However, in
some cases both versions may remain as Internet Standards to honor
the requirements of an installed base. In this situation, the
relationship between the previous and the new versions must be
explicitly stated in the text of the new version or in another
appropriate document (e.g., an Applicability Statement; see section
3.2).
5.5 Retiring a Standard
As the technology changes and matures, it is possible for a new
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Standard specification to be so clearly superior technically that one
or more existing Internet Standards for the same function should be
retired. In this case, the IESG shall approve a change of status of
the superseded specification(s) from Standard to Historic. This
recommendation shall be issued with the same Last-Call and
notification procedures used for any other standards action.
5.6 Conflict Resolution and Appeals
IETF Working Groups are generally able to reach consensus, which
sometimes requires difficult compromises between or among different
technical proposals. However, there are times when even the most
reasonable and knowledgeable people are unable to agree. To achieve
the goals of openness and fairness, such conflicts must be resolved
by a process of open review and discussion. This section specifies
the procedures that shall be followed to deal with Internet standards
issues that cannot be resolved through the normal processes whereby
IETF Working Groups and other Internet standards process participants
ordinarily reach consensus.
An individual (whether a participant in the relevant Working Group or
not) may disagree with a Working Group recommendation based on his or
her belief that either (a) his or her own views have not been
adequately considered by the Working Group, or (b) the Working Group
has made an incorrect technical choice which places the quality
and/or integrity of the Working Group's product(s) in significant
jeopardy. The first issue is a difficulty with Working Group
process; the latter is an assertion of technical error. These two
types of disagreement are quite different, but both are handled by
the same process of review.
A person who disagrees with a Working Group recommendation shall
always first discuss the matter with the Working Group's chair(s),
who may involve other members of the Working Group (or the Working
Group as a whole) in the discussion. If the disagreement cannot be
resolved in this way, it shall be brought to the attention of the
Area Director(s) for the area in which the Working Group is
chartered. The Area Director(s) shall attempt to resolve the
dispute. If the disagreement cannot be resolved by the Area
Director(s) the matter may be brought before the IESG as a whole. In
all cases a decision concerning the disposition of the dispute, and
the communication of that decision to the parties involved, must be
accomplished within a reasonable period of time.
A person who disagrees with an IESG decision should first discuss the
matter with the IESG chair, who may involve other members of the
IESG, or the whole IESG, in the discussion.
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If the disagreement is not resolved to the satisfaction of the
parties at the IESG level, any of the parties involved may appeal the
decision to the IAB by sending notice of such appeal to the IAB
electronic mail list. The IAB's review of the dispute shall be
informed by the findings of the IESG, by any additional
representation that the original petitioner(s) or others wish to make
in response to the IESG's findings, and by its own investigation of
the circumstances and the claims made by all parties. The IAB shall
make and announce its decision within a reasonable period of time.
[NOTE: These procedures intentionally and explicitly do not
establish a fixed maximum time period that shall be considered
"reasonable" in all cases. The Internet standards process places a
premium on consensus and efforts to achieve it, and deliberately
foregoes deterministically swift execution of procedures in favor of
a latitude within which more genuine technical agreements may be
reached.]
The IAB decision is final with respect to the question of whether or
not the Internet standards procedures have been followed and with
respect to all questions of technical merit.
Further recourse is available only in cases in which the procedures
themselves (i.e., the procedures described in this document) are
claimed to be inadequate or insufficient to the protection of the
rights of all parties in a fair and open Internet standards process.
Claims on this basis may be made to the Internet Society Board of
Trustees, by formal notice to the ISOC electronic mail list. The
President of the Internet Society shall acknowledge such an appeal
within two weeks, and shall at the time of acknowledgment advise the
petitioner of the expected duration of the Trustees' review of the
appeal (which shall be completed within a reasonable period of time).
The Trustees' decision upon completion of their review shall be final
with respect to all aspects of the dispute.
At all stages of the appeals process, the individuals or bodies
responsible for making the decisions have the discretion to define
the specific procedures they will follow in the process of making
their decision.
6. BEST CURRENT PRACTICE (BCP) RFCs
Internet standards have generally been concerned with the technical
specifications for hardware and software required for computer
communication across interconnected networks. The Internet itself is
composed of networks operated by a great variety of organizations,
with diverse goals and rules. However, good user service requires
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that the operators and administrators of the Internet follow some
common guidelines for policies and operations. While these guidelines
are generally different in scope and style from protocol standards,
their establishment needs a similar process for consensus building.
6.1 BCP Review Process
The BCP process is similar to that for proposed standards. The BCP
is submitted to the IESG for review, and the existing review process
applies, including a Last-Call on the IETF announcement mailing list.
However, once the IESG has approved the document, the process ends
and the document is published. The resulting document is viewed as
having the technical approval of the IETF, but it is not, and cannot
become an official Internet Standard.
Specifically, a document to be considered for the status of BCP must
undergo the procedures outlined in sections 5.1, and 5.5 of this
document. It is also under the restrictions of section 5.2 and the
process may be appealed according to the procedures in section 5.6.
7. EXTERNAL STANDARDS AND SPECIFICATIONS
Many standards groups other than the IETF create and publish
standards documents for network protocols and services. When these
external specifications play an important role in the Internet, it is
desirable to reach common agreements on their usage -- i.e., to
establish Internet Standards relating to these external
specifications.
There are two categories of external specifications:
(1) Open Standards
Accredited national and international standards bodies, such as
ANSI, ISO, IEEE, and ITU-TS, develop a variety of protocol and
service specifications that are similar to Technical
Specifications defined here. National and international groups
also publish "implementors' agreements" that are analogous to
Applicability Statements, capturing a body of implementation-
specific detail concerned with the practical application of their
standards. All of these are considered to be "open external
standards" for the purposes of the Internet standards process.
(2) Vendor Specifications
A vendor-proprietary specification that has come to be widely used
in the Internet may be treated by the Internet community as if it
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were a "standard". Such a specification is not generally
developed in an open fashion, is typically proprietary, and is
controlled by the vendor or vendors that produced it.
To avoid conflict between competing versions of a specification, the
Internet community will not standardize a TS or AS that is simply an
"Internet version" of an existing external specification unless an
explicit cooperative arrangement to do so has been made. However,
there are several ways in which an external specification that is
important for the operation and/or evolution of the Internet may be
adopted for Internet use.
(a) Incorporation of an Open Standard
An Internet Standard TS or AS may incorporate an open external
standard by reference. For example, many Internet Standards
incorporate by reference the ANSI standard character set "ASCII"
[2]. The reference must be to a specific version of the external
standard, e.g., by publication date or by edition number,
according to the prevailing convention of the organization that is
responsible for the specification. Whenever possible, the
referenced specification shall be available online.
(b) Incorporation of a Vendor Specification
Vendor-proprietary specifications may be incorporated by reference
to a specific version of the vendor standard. If the vendor-
proprietary specification is not widely and readily available, the
IESG may request that it be published as an Informational RFC.
For a vendor-proprietary specification to be incorporated within
the Internet standards process, the proprietor must meet the
requirements of section 8, and the specification shall be made
available online.
The IESG shall not favor a particular vendor's proprietary
specification over the technically equivalent and competing
specification(s) of other vendors by making any incorporated
vendor specification "required" or "recommended".
(c) Assumption
An IETF Working Group may start from an external specification and
develop it into an Internet TS or AS. This is acceptable only if
(1) the specification is provided to the Working Group in
compliance with the requirements of section 8, and (2) change
control has been conveyed to IETF by the original developer of the
specification. Sample text illustrating the way in which a vendor
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might convey change control to the Internet Society is contained
in [10].
8. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
8.1. General Policy
In all matters of intellectual property rights and procedures, the
intention is to benefit the Internet community and the public at
large, while respecting the legitimate rights of others.
8.2 Confidentiality Obligations
No contribution that is subject to any requirement of confidentiality
or any restriction on its dissemination may be considered in any part
of the Internet standards process, and there must be no assumption of
any confidentiality obligation with respect to any such contribution.
8.3. Rights and Permissions
In the course of standards work, the IETF receives contributions in
various forms and from many persons. To best facilitate the
dissemination of these contributions, it is necessary to understand
any encumbrances relating to the contributions.
8.3.1. All Contributions
By submission of a contribution a contributor is deemed to agree to
the following terms and conditions:
l. Contributor grants a perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free,
world-wide right and license under any copyrights to publish and
distribute in any way the contribution, and to develop derivative
works that are based on or incorporate all or part of the
contribution, and that such derivative works will inherit the
right and license of the original contribution.
2. The contributor acknowledges that the IETF has no duty to publish
or otherwise use or disseminate every contribution.
3. The contributor grants permission to reference the name(s) and
address(s) of the contributor as well as other persons who are
named as contributors.
4. The contributor represents that there no limits to the
contributor's ability to make the grants and acknowledgments above
that are reasonably and personally known to the contributor.
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8.4.2. Standards Track Documents
(A) The IESG shall not approve any TS, or advance any TS along the
standards track which can be practiced only by using technology
that is subject to known patents or patent applications, or other
proprietary rights, except with the prior written assurance of the
claimer of such rights that upon approval by the IESG of the
relevant Internet standards track TS(s), any party will be able to
obtain the right to implement and use the technology or works
under specified, reasonable, non-discriminatory terms.
(B) The IESG disclaims any responsibility for identifying the
existence of or for evaluating the applicability of any claimed
copyrights, patents, patent applications, or other rights in the
fulfilling of the its obligations under (A), and will take no
position on the validity or scope of any such rights.
8.4.3 Determination of Reasonable and Non-discriminatory Terms
The IESG will not make any explicit determination that the assurance
of reasonable and non-discriminatory terms for the use of a
technology has been fulfilled in practice. It will instead use the
normal requirements for the advancement of Internet Standards to
verify that the terms for use are reasonable. If the two unrelated
implementations of the standard that are required to advance from
Proposed to Draft have been produced by different vendors or if the
"significant implementation and successful operational experience"
required to advance from Draft to full Standard has been achieved the
assumption is that the terms must be reasonable and to some degree,
non-discriminatory. This assumption may be challenged during the
Last-Call period.
8.5. Notices
(A) Standards track documents shall include the following notice:
"The IETF takes no position on the validity or scope of any
claimed encumbrances to the implementation or use of the
technology described in this document, nor that it has made any
effort to identify any such encumbrances. For further
information on the IETF's procedures with respect to rights in
standards and standards-related documentation, see RFC-1602bis,
dated in the future. Copies of all claims of encumbrances
submitted to the IETF for posting and copies of all statements
of the ability to obtain the right to implement and use the
technology under specified, reasonable, non-discriminatory
terms that have been received by the IETF referring to this
technology may be found in the "rights" subdirectory in the RFC
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archives."
(B) The IETF encourages all interested parties to bring to its
attention, at the earliest possible time, the existence of any
encumbrances pertaining to Internet Standards. For this purpose,
each standards document shall include the following invitation:
"The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its
attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or
other proprietary rights which purport to cover technology that
may be required to practice this standard. Please address the
information to the Executive Director of the Internet
Engineering Task Force."
(C) The following copyright notice and disclaimer shall be included
in all ISOC standards-related documentation:
Copyright (year) The Internet Society. All Rights Reserved.
This document may be copied and furnished to others without
restriction of any kind provided the document is not modified
in any way, such as by removing this copyright notice or
references to The Internet Society or other Internet
organizations.
The document may be modified as needed for the purpose of
developing Internet standards provided this notice is (1)
included in the modified document without change and (2) the
person or organization making the modifications clearly
identifies, within the modified document, the changes that have
been made and who made them.
The permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.
This document is provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET
SOCIETY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY OF NON INFRINGEMENT OF THIRD
PARTY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
9. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There have been a number of people involved with the development of
the documents defining the IETF standards process over the years.
The process was first described in RFC 1310 then revised in RFC 1602
before the current effort (which relies heavily on its predecessors).
Specific acknowledgments must be extended to Lyman Chapin, Phill
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Gross and Christian Huitema as the editors of the previous versions,
to Jon Postel and Dave Crocker for their inputs to those versions,
and to Andy Ireland, Geoff Stewart, Jim Lampert and Dock Holleman for
their reviews of the legal aspects of the procedures described
herein.
In addition much of the credit for the refinement of the details of
the IETF processes belongs to the many members of the various
incarnations of the POISED working group.
10. SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
Security issues are not discussed in this memo.
12. REFERENCES
[1] Postel, J., "Internet Official Protocol Standards", STD 1,
USC/Information Sciences Institute, March 1994.
[2] ANSI, Coded Character Set -- 7-Bit American Standard Code for
Information Interchange, ANSI X3.4-1986.
[3] Reynolds, J., and J. Postel, "Assigned Numbers", STD 2,
USC/Information Sciences Institute, July 1992.
[4] Postel, J., "Introduction to the STD Notes", RFC 1311,
USC/Information Sciences Institute, March 1992.
[5] Postel, J., "Instructions to RFC Authors", RFC 1543,
USC/Information Sciences Institute, October 1993.
ti 3 [6] Postel, J., T. Li, and Y. Rekhter "Best Current
Practices, RFC 1818, USC/Information Sciences Institute, Cisco
Systems, August 1995.
[7] foo, "Standard Form for Conveyance of Change Control to the
Internet Society", RFC xxxx.
12 ..AUTHORS' ADDRESS
Scott O. Bradner Harvard University Holyoke Center, Room 813
1350 Mass. Ave. Cambridge, MA 02138 USA +1 617 495 3864
sob@harvard.edu
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APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS
ANSI: American National Standards Institute
ARPA: (U.S.) Advanced Research Projects Agency
AS: Applicability Statement
ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Interchange
ITU-TS: Telecommunications Standardization sector of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a UN
treaty organization; ITU-TS was formerly called CCITT.
IAB: Internet Architecture Board
IANA: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
IEEE: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
ICMP: Internet Control Message Protocol
IESG: Internet Engineering Steering Group
IETF: Internet Engineering Task Force
IP: Internet Protocol
IRSG Internet Research Steering Group
IRTF: Internet Research Task Force
ISO: International Organization for Standardization
ISOC: Internet Society
MIB: Management Information Base
OSI: Open Systems Interconnection
RFC: Request for Comments
TCP: Transmission Control Protocol
TS: Technical Specification
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