- From: Jim Whitehead <ejw@cse.ucsc.edu>
- Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 13:46:48 -0700
- To: "WebDAV WG" <w3c-dist-auth@w3.org>
It's time to start the process of revising RFC 2518 to move it from Proposed Standard to Draft Standard status. Revising protocol specifications based on operational experience is a normal part of the IETF process. Standards-track protocol specifications begin at "Proposed Standard", then progress to "Draft Standard" and full "Standard". Currently RFC 2518 is a Proposed Standard. According to RFC 2026 ("The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3"), a Proposed Standard has the following characteristics: 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. A Draft Standard, in contrast, has the following characteristics: A specification from which at least two independent and interoperable implementations from different code bases have been developed, and for which sufficient successful operational experience has been obtained, may be elevated to the "Draft Standard" level. ... 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. The Working Group chair is responsible for documenting the specific implementations which qualify the specification for Draft or Internet Standard status along with documentation about testing of the interoperation of these implementations. The documentation must include information about the support of each of the individual options and features. This documentation should be submitted to the Area Director with the protocol action request. (see Section 6) 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. At last count, there are 22 independent WebDAV server code bases, and 9 indepdent client code bases, as well as 10 independent client APIs (see http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/webdav/ for a listing). The WebDAV protocol is in daily use by a large number of people who are using it to do useful work. As a result, I believe the two criteria for advancing to Draft Standard have been met: (1) there are at least two interoperable implementations (from distinct code bases) of each feature, on the client and server side, and (2) sufficient operational experience has been developed for the WebDAV protocol. Therefore, as Chair, I hereby initiate the process of revising RFC 2518 and documenting interoperability experience for the purpose of advancing RFC 2518 to Draft Standard status. A following email will detail the process WebDAV WG will to follow to achieve this goal. - Jim Whitehead Chair, WebDAV WG
Received on Tuesday, 10 April 2001 16:48:14 UTC