Comment by ShroudedNight

17 hours ago

I'm not an IETF process expert. Would this be worth filing errata against the original RFC in addition to their new proposed update?

Also, what's the right mental framework behind deciding when to release a patch RFC vs obsoleting the old standard for a comprehensive update?

3 comments

ShroudedNight

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hdjrudni  16 hours ago

I don't know the official process, but as a human that sometimes reads and implements IETF RFCs, I'd appreciate updates to the original doc rather than replacing it with something brand new. Probably with some dated version history.

Otherwise I might go to consult my favorite RFC and not even know its been superseded. And if it has been superseded with a brand new doc, now I have to start from scratch again instead of reading the diff or patch notes to figure out what needs updating.

And if we must supersede, I humbly request a warning be put at the top, linking the new standard.

  • ShroudedNight  15 hours ago

    At one point I could have sworn they were sticking obsoletion notices in the header, but now I can only find them in the right side-bar:

    https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5245

    I agree, that it would be much more helpful if made obvious in the document itself.

    It's not obvious that "updated by" notices are treated in any more of a helpful manner than "obsoletes"