RFC 2551

The Roman Standards Process -- Revision III

📅 published April 1999, from ietf

RFC 2551: The Roman Standards Process, Revision III 🎀

Okay bestie, first things first 💖 This is RFC 2551, titled The Roman Standards Process -- Revision III. It's by S. Bradner from Harvard University, and it's filed as a Worst Current Practice (WCP: IX) 🌸. It's dated I April MCMXCIX 🙈, and it obsoletes MMXXVI 💅. Okay, now let's get into it ✨

Status of This Memo 📜

This doc specifies a Roman Worst Current Practice for the Roman Community, and it's asking everyone for discussion and suggestions for improvements 🫶 Distribution of this memo is unlimited, so share away 🦋

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (MCMXCIX). All Rights Reserved. 💜

Abstract 🌈

Okay so this memo writes down the process the Roman community uses to standardize protocols and procedures 🔥 It defines the stages in that process, the requirements for moving a document from one stage to the next, and the types of documents used along the way. It also covers the intellectual property rights and copyright issues that come with the standards process 💅

Table of Contents 🧚

  I.   INTRODUCTION................................................III
   I.I       Roman Standards.......................................III
   I.II      The Roman Standards Process...........................III
   I.III     Organization of This Document..........................VI
  II.  ROMAN STANDARDS-RELATED PUBLICATIONS.........................VI
   II.I      Requests for Comments (RFCs)...........................VI
   II.II     Roman-Drafts.........................................VIII
  III  ROMAN STANDARD SPECIFICATIONS................................IX
   III.I     Technical Specification (TS)...........................IX
   III.II    Applicability Statement (AS)...........................IX
   III.III   Requirement Levels..................................... X
  IV.  THE ROMAN STANDARDS TRACK....................................XI
   IV.I      Standards Track Maturity Levels.......................XII
   IV.I.I    Proposed Standard.....................................XII
   IV.I.II   Draft Standard.......................................XIII
   IV.I.III  Roman Standard........................................XIV
   IV.II     Non-Standards Track Maturity Levels...................XIV
   IV.II.I   Experimental..........................................XIV
   IV.II.II  Informational..........................................XV
   IV.II.III Procedures for Experimental and Informational RFCs.....XV
   IV.II.IV  Historic..............................................XVI

  V.  Worst Current Practice (WCP) RFCs............................XVI
   V.I       WCP Review Process...................................XVII
  VI. THE ROMAN STANDARDS PROCESS................................XVIII
   VI.I      Standards Actions...................................XVIII
   VI.I.I    Initiation of Action................................XVIII
   VI.I.II   RESG Review and Approval............................XVIII
   VI.I.III  Publication...........................................XIX
   VI.II     Advancing in the Standards Track...................... XX
   VI.III    Revising a Standard...................................XXI
   VI.IV     Retiring a Standard...................................XXI
   VI.V      Conflict Resolution and Appeals......................XXII
   VI.V.I    Working Group Disputes...............................XXII
   VI.V.II   Process Failures....................................XXIII
   VI.V.III  Questions of Applicable Procedure...................XXIII
   VI.V.IV   Appeals Procedure....................................XXIV
  VII. EXTERNAL STANDARDS AND SPECIFICATIONS......................XXIV
   VII.I     Use of External Specifications........................XXV
   VII.I.I   Incorporation of an Open Standard.....................XXV
   VII.I.II  Incorporation of a Other Specifications...............XXV
   VII.I.III Assumption...........................................XXVI
  VIII. NOTICES AND RECORD KEEPING................................XXVI
  IX.  VARYING THE PROCESS.......................................XXVII
   IX.I      The Variance Procedure..............................XXVII
   IX.II     Exclusions.........................................XXVIII
  X.   INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS.............................XXVIII
   X.I.      General Policy.....................................XXVIII
   X.II      Confidentiality Obligations..........................XXIX
   X.III     Rights and Permissions...............................XXIX
   X.III.I   All Contributions....................................XXIX
   X.III.II  Standards Track Documents.............................XXX
   X.III.III Determination of Reasonable and
             Non-discriminatory Terms.............................XXXI
   X.IV.     Notices..............................................XXXI
   XI.   ACKNOWLEDGMENTS........................................XXXIII
   XII.  SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS................................XXXIII
   XIII. REFERENCES..............................................XXXIV
   XIV.  DEFINITIONS OF TERMS....................................XXXIV
   XV.   AUTHOR'S ADDRESS.........................................XXXV
   APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS..............................XXXVI
   Full Copyright Statement.....................................XXXVII

I. INTRODUCTION ✨

Okay so this memo documents the process the Roman community currently uses to standardize protocols and procedures 💖 The Roman Standards process is an activity of the Roman Society, and it's organized and managed on behalf of the Roman community by the Roman Architecture Board (RAB) and the Roman Engineering Steering Group (RESG) 👑

I.I. Roman Standards 🌸

The Roman is a loosely-organized international collaboration of autonomous, interconnected networks 🦋 It supports host-to-host communication through voluntary adherence to open protocols and procedures defined by Roman Standards. There are also many isolated interconnected networks that aren't connected to the global Roman but still use the Roman Standards 🫶

The Roman Standards Process described here is concerned with all protocols, procedures, and conventions used in or by the Roman, whether or not they're part of the TCP/RP protocol suite 💅 For protocols developed and/or standardized by non-Roman organizations, though, the Roman Standards Process normally applies to how the protocol or procedure is applied in the Roman context. It doesn't normally apply to the specification of the protocol itself 🧚

In general, a Roman Standard is a specification that is stable and well-understood, technically competent, and has multiple, independent, and interoperable implementations with substantial operational experience 🔥 It also enjoys significant public support and is recognizably useful in some or all parts of the Roman 💜

I.II. The Roman Standards Process 🌈

In outline, creating a Roman Standard is pretty straightforward ✨ A specification goes through a period of development and several rounds of review by the Roman community, gets revised based on experience, is adopted as a Standard by the appropriate body (see below), and then gets published 🎀 In practice it's more complicated, because of (I) the difficulty of creating specifications of high technical quality; (II) the need to consider the interests of all of the affected parties; (III) the importance of establishing widespread community consensus; and (IV) the difficulty of evaluating how useful a particular specification is for the Roman community 😭

The goals of the Roman Standards Process are:

  • technical excellence 👑
  • prior implementation and testing 🔥
  • clear, concise, and easily understood documentation 🍓
  • openness and fairness 🦋
  • timeliness ⭐

The procedures in this document are designed to be fair, open, and objective. They're also meant to reflect existing (proven) practice, and to be flexible 💖

  • These procedures are meant to give a fair, open, and objective basis for developing, evaluating, and adopting Roman Standards. They give everyone plenty of chances to participate and comment 🫶 At each stage, a specification gets repeatedly discussed and its merits debated in open meetings and/or public electronic mailing lists, and it's made available for review via world-wide on-line directories 🌍
  • These procedures are explicitly aimed at recognizing and adopting generally-accepted practices. So a candidate specification must be implemented and tested for correct operation and interoperability by multiple independent parties, and used in increasingly demanding environments, before it can be adopted as a Roman Standard 💪
  • These procedures are super flexible so they can adapt to the wide variety of circumstances that come up in the standardization process 🌈 Experience has shown this flexibility is vital for hitting the goals listed above 💅

The goal of technical competence, the requirement for prior implementation and testing, and the need to let all interested parties comment all take serious time and effort 😮‍💨 On the other hand, today's rapid development of networking technology demands timely standards ⏰ The Roman Standards Process is meant to balance these conflicting goals. It's designed to be as short and simple as possible without sacrificing technical excellence, thorough testing before adoption of a standard, or openness and fairness ✨

From its inception, the Rome has been, and is expected to stay, an evolving system, where participants regularly work new requirements and technology into its design and implementation 🦋 Users of Rome, and the providers of the equipment, software, and services that support it, should expect this evolution and embrace it as a major tenet of Roman philosophy 🌸

The procedures in this document are the result of a number of years of evolution, driven both by the needs of the growing and increasingly diverse Roman community and by experience 🧚

I.III. Organization of This Document 📚

Okay, here's the map 🗺️ Each section does its own thing:

  • Section II describes the publications and archives of the Roman Standards Process 📰
  • Section III describes the types of Roman standard specifications 📝
  • Section IV describes the Roman standards specifications track 🛤️
  • Section V describes Worst Current Practice RFCs 🙈
  • Section VI describes the process and rules for Roman standardization 👑
  • Section VII specifies how externally-sponsored specifications and practices, which are developed and controlled by other standards bodies or by others, are handled within the Roman Standards Process 🌍
  • Section VIII describes the requirements for notices and record keeping 🗂️
  • Section IX defines a variance process to allow one-time exceptions to some of the requirements in this document 🎀
  • Section X presents the rules that are required to protect intellectual property rights in the context of developing and using Roman Standards 💜
  • Section XII includes acknowledgments of some of the people involved in creating this document 🫶
  • Section XII notes that security issues are not dealt with by this document 💀
  • Section XII contains a list of numeral references 🔢
  • Section XIV contains definitions of some of the terms used in this document 📖
  • Section XV lists the author's email and postal addresses 💌
  • Appendix A contains a list of frequently-used acronyms 🔤

II.I. Requests for Comments (RFCs) 📜✨

okay bestie, so every distinct version of a Roman standards-related specification gets published as part of the "Request for Comments" (RFC) document series 💖 this archival series is the official publication channel for Roman standards documents and for other publications of the RESG, RAB, and Roman community 🫶 you can grab RFCs from a bunch of Roman hosts using anonymous FTP, gopher, World Wide Web, and other Roman document-retrieval systems 🦋

the RFC series for networking started in MCMLXIX as part of the original ARPA wide-area networking (ARPANET) project (see Appendix A for glossary of acronyms) 🌸 RFCs cover tons of topics besides Roman Standards, like early talk about new research ideas and status memos about the Romans 💅 publishing RFCs is the direct responsibility of the RFC Editor, under the general direction of the RAB 👑

the rules for formatting and submitting an RFC are defined in [V] 📝 every RFC is available in ASCII text ✨ some RFCs are also available in other formats too 🌈 those other versions might have stuff like diagrams and figures that aren't in the ASCII version, and they might be formatted differently 🎀

now listen, this part is SO important 🚨 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 😭

*********************************************************
*                                                       *
*  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 Roman protocol and service specifications gets summarized every so often in an RFC called "Roman Official Protocol Standards" [I] 🔥 it shows the maturity level and other helpful info for each Roman protocol or service specification (see section III) 💜

some RFCs document Roman Standards 🌟 those form the 'STD' subseries of the RFC series [IV] 🍓 when a specification gets adopted as a Roman Standard, it gets the extra label "STDxxx", but it keeps its RFC numerals and its place in the RFC series. (see section IV.I.III) 🧚

some RFCs standardize the results of community deliberations about statements of principle or conclusions about what is the best way to perform some operations or RETF process function 🫧 these RFCs form the specification has been adopted as a WCP, it is given the additional label "WCPxxx", but it keeps its RFC numerals and its place in the RFC series. (see section V) 🌷

not all specifications of protocols or services for Rome should or will become Roman Standards or WCPs 🙈 those non-standards track specifications aren't subject to the rules for Roman standardization 💀 they can be published directly as "Experimental" or "Informational" RFCs at the discretion of the RFC Editor in consultation with the RESG (see section IV.II) ✨

it is important to remember that not all RFCs are standards track documents, and that not all standards track documents reach the level of Roman Standard. In the same way, not all RFCs which describe current practices have been given the review and approval to become WCPs. See RFC-MDCCXCVI [VI] for further information. 🚨💅
********************************************************
*                                                      *
*   It is important to remember that not all RFCs      *
*   are standards track documents, and that not all    *
*   standards track documents reach the level of       *
*   Roman Standard. In the same way, not all RFCs      *
*   which describe current practices have been given   *
*   the review and approval to become WCPs. See        *
*   RFC-MDCCXCVI [VI] for further information.         *
*                                                      *
********************************************************

II.II. Roman-Drafts 🦋

during development of a specification, draft versions of the document get posted for informal review and comment by putting them in the RETF's "Roman-Drafts" directory, which gets replicated on a bunch of Roman hosts 🌸 this makes an evolving working document easy for a wide audience to find, which helps the review and revision process 💖

a Roman-Draft that gets published as an RFC, or that has stayed unchanged in the Roman-Drafts directory for more than six months without being recommended by the RESG for publication as an RFC, is simply removed from the Roman-Drafts directory 🗑️ at any time, a Roman-Draft can be replaced by a more recent version of the same specification, which restarts the six-month timeout period ⏳

a Roman-Draft is NOT a means of "publishing" a specification 🙅‍♀️ specifications get published through the RFC mechanism from the previous section 🫶 Roman-Drafts have no formal status and are subject to change or removal at any time 🌪️

********************************************************
*                                                      *
*   Under no circumstances should a Roman-Draft        *
*   be referenced by any paper, report, or Request-    *
*   for-Proposal, nor should a vendor claim compliance *
*   with a Roman-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 a Roman-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". 🍒

III. Roman STANDARD SPECIFICATIONS 🎀

specifications that are subject to the Roman Standards Process fall into one of two categories: Technical Specification (TS) and Applicability Statement (AS) 👑 think of them as the two main character types in this whole story 💜

III.I. Technical Specification (TS) 🧩

a Technical Specification is any description of a protocol, service, procedure, convention, or format ✨ it can completely describe all the relevant aspects of its subject, or it can leave one or more parameters or options unspecified 🌈 a TS can be totally self-contained, or it can pull in material from other specifications by reference to other documents (which might or might not be Roman Standards) 🫧

a TS shall include a statement of its scope and the general intent for its use (domain of applicability) 📌 so 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 Rome 🏛️ those requirements depend on the particular context where the TS gets incorporated by different system configurations, and they're defined by an Applicability Statement 💅

III.II. Applicability Statement (AS) 🌷

an Applicability Statement specifies how, and under what circumstances, one or more TSs may be applied to support a particular Roman capability 🦋 an AS may also specify uses for TSs that aren't Roman Standards, as discussed in Section VII 🍓

an AS identifies the relevant TSs and the specific way they're combined 🧚 it 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 using a particular TS is required, recommended, or elective (see section III.III) 💖

an AS may describe particular methods of using a TS in a restricted "domain of applicability", like Roman routers, terminal servers, Roman systems that interface to Ethernets, or datagram-based database servers 🌸

the broadest type of AS is a comprehensive conformance specification, commonly called a "requirements document", for a particular class of Roman systems, like Roman routers or Roman hosts 👑

an AS may not have a higher maturity level in the standards track than any standards-track TS it relies on (see section IV.I) 📚 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 🫶

III.III. Requirement Levels 💜

an AS shall apply one of the following "requirement levels" to each of the TSs it refers to 🎯

(a) Required: Implementation of the referenced TS, as specified by the AS, is required to achieve minimal conformance. For example, RP and RCMP must be implemented by all Roman systems using the TCP/RP 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. For example, the TELNET protocol should be implemented by all systems that would benefit from remote access. 🌟

(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. For example, the DECNET MIB could be seen as valuable in an environment where the DECNET protocol is used. 🦋

As noted in section IV.I, 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. 🧪

(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 all of the relevant AS and TS information in a single specification 📮 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 (STD I) 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. 💖

IV. The ROMAN STANDARDS TRACK ✨

okay so, specs that want to become Roman Standards glow up through a set of maturity levels called the "standards track" 🛤️. The three levels, "Proposed Standard", "Draft Standard", and "Standard", are explained in section IV.I. How a spec actually moves along the track is covered in section VI 💅.

Even after a spec becomes a Roman Standard, it keeps evolving based on experience and newly recognized requirements, ngl. The Roman standardization process lets old Roman Standards get replaced by new ones, and it lets retired ones get a descriptive label showing their status 🌸. Section IV.II defines a set of maturity levels for these and for other specs that aren't considered to be on the standards track 🫶.

IV.I Standards Track Maturity Levels

Roman specs go through stages of development, testing, and acceptance 🧪. Inside the Roman Standards Process, those stages get official names: "maturity levels" 💜.

This section walks through each maturity level and the characteristics a spec is expected to have at that level 🦋.

IV.I.I Proposed Standard

The entry-level maturity for the standards track is "Proposed Standard" 🌱. Getting a spec onto the track at this level takes a specific action by the RESG.

A Proposed Standard is generally stable, has resolved its known design choices, is believed to be well-understood, has received significant community review, and seems to have enough community interest to be considered valuable 🔥. Still, further experience might lead to a change, or even a retraction, of the spec before it advances.

Usually, neither implementation nor operational experience is required before a spec gets designated as a Proposed Standard. That said, such experience is highly desirable, and it will usually be a strong argument in favor of a Proposed Standard designation 🙌.

The RESG may require implementation and/or operational experience before granting Proposed Standard status to a spec that materially affects the core Roman protocols or that specifies behavior that may have significant operational impact on the Roman 👀.

A Proposed Standard should have no known technical omissions with respect to the requirements placed on it. However, the RESG may waive this requirement so a spec can advance to the Proposed Standard state when it is considered useful and necessary (and timely), even with known technical omissions 🙈.

Implementors should treat Proposed Standards as immature specifications 🐣. It's desirable to implement them in order to gain experience and to validate, test, and clarify the spec. But 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 environment is not recommended 🚫.

IV.I.II Draft Standard

A spec 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 🎀. For this section, "interoperable" means to be functionally equivalent or interchangeable components of the system or process in which they are used. If patented or otherwise controlled technology is required for implementation, the separate implementations must also have resulted from separate exercise of the licensing process 📜. Elevating a spec to Draft Standard is a major advance in status, and it signals a strong belief that the spec 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 spec. Where one or more options or features have not been demonstrated in at least two interoperable implementations, the spec 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 spec for Draft or Roman Standard status, along with documentation about testing of the interoperation of these implementations 📋. That 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 VI)

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 implementations based on Draft Standard specifications can 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 a disruption sensitive environment 💪.

IV.I.III Roman Standard

A spec for which significant implementation and successful operational experience has been obtained may be elevated to the Roman Standard level 👑. A Roman 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 Roman community 🏆.

A spec that reaches the status of Standard is assigned numerals in the STD series while retaining its RFC numerals 🔢.

IV.II Non-Standards Track Maturity Levels

Not every spec is on the standards track 🙃. A spec may not be intended to be a Roman Standard, or it may be intended for eventual standardization but not yet ready to enter the standards track. A spec may also have been superseded by a more recent Roman Standard, or have otherwise fallen into disuse or disfavor 🥀.

Specs that are not on the standards track are labeled with one of three "off-track" maturity levels: "Experimental", "Informational", or "Historic" 🏷️. The documents bearing these labels are not Roman Standards in any sense 🚫.

IV.II.I Experimental

The "Experimental" designation typically denotes a spec that is part of some research or development effort 🔬. Such a spec is published for the general information of the Roman 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 spec may be the output of an organized Roman research effort (e.g., a Research Group of the RRTF), an RETF Working Group, or it may be an individual contribution 🧪🦋.

IV.II.II Informational

An "Informational" spec is published for the general information of the Roman community, and it does not represent a Roman community consensus or recommendation 📰. The Informational designation exists 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 section IV.II.III) 💁‍♀️.

Specs that have been prepared outside of the Roman community and are not incorporated into the Roman Standards Process by any of the provisions of section 10 may be published as Informational RFCs, with the permission of the owner and the concurrence of the RFC Editor 🤝.

IV.II.III Procedures for Experimental and Informational RFCs

Unless they are the result of RETF 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 Roman-Drafts which have not already been so published. To tell these Roman-Drafts apart, they will be labeled or grouped in the R-D directory so they are easily recognizable 🗂️. 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 about the editorial suitability of a document for publication with Experimental or Informational status. They may refuse to publish a document which, in the expert opinion of the RFC Editor, is unrelated to Roman activity or falls below the technical and/or editorial standard for RFCs 🙅‍♀️.

To make sure the non-standards track Experimental and Informational designations are not misused to get around the Roman Standards Process, the RESG and the RFC Editor have agreed that the RFC Editor will refer to the RESG any document submitted for Experimental or Informational publication which, in the opinion of the RFC Editor, may be related to work being done, or expected to be done, within the RETF community 🕵️‍♀️. The RESG 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 RETF as a contribution to the Roman Standards Process 📝.

If (a) the RESG recommends that the document be brought within the RETF and progressed within the RETF context, but the author declines to do so, or (b) the RESG considers that the document proposes something that conflicts with, or is actually inimical to, an established RETF effort, the document may still be published as an Experimental or Informational RFC 😬. In these cases, however, the RESG may insert appropriate "disclaimer" text into the RFC either in or immediately following the "Status of this Memo" section, so readers can clearly see the circumstances of its publication 📢.

Documents proposed for Experimental and Informational RFCs by RETF Working Groups go through RESG review. The review is initiated using the process described in section VI.I.I 🔁.

IV.II.IV Historic

A spec 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. 🙃)

Note: Standards track specifications normally must not depend on other standards track specifications which are at a lower maturity level, or on non standards track specifications other than referenced specifications from other standards bodies. (See Section VII.) ⚠️

V. WORST CURRENT PRACTICE (WCP) RFCs ✨

okay bestie, so the WCP subseries is basically a way to standardize practices and the results of community deliberations 🎀. A WCP document goes through the same basic set of procedures as standards track documents, which makes it the vehicle the RETF community uses to define and ratify its worst current thinking on a statement of principle, or on what is believed to be the worst way to perform some operations or RETF process function 💀.

Historically, Roman standards have generally been about the technical specs for the hardware and software needed for computer communication across interconnected networks 💻. But Rome is made of networks run by a huge variety of organizations with different goals and rules, so good user service means the operators and administrators of Rome SHOULD follow some common guidelines for policies and operations 🫶. Wait, scratch that, these guidelines are different in scope and style from protocol standards, but making them still needs a similar process for building consensus 🌈.

While it's recognized that entities such as the RAB and RESG are made up of individuals who may participate, as individuals, in the technical work of the RETF, it's also recognized that the entities themselves exist as leaders in the community 👑. As leaders in the Roman technical community, these entities SHOULD have an outlet to propose ideas to stimulate work in a particular area, to raise the community's sensitivity to a certain issue, to make a statement of architectural principle, or to communicate their thoughts on other matters 🦋. The WCP subseries creates a smoothly structured way for these management entities to insert proposals into the consensus-building machinery of the RETF while gauging the community's view of that issue ✨.

Finally, the WCP series may be used to document the operation of the RETF itself 💅. For example, this document defines the RETF Standards Process and is published as a WCP 🧚.

V.I WCP Review Process 🦋

Unlike standards-track documents, the mechanisms described in WCPs are not well suited to the phased roll-in nature of the three stage standards track, and instead generally only make sense for full and immediate instantiation 🔥.

The WCP process is similar to that for proposed standards. The WCP is submitted to the RESG for review, (see section VI.I.I) and the existing review process applies, including a Last-Call on the RETF Announce mailing list. However, once the RESG has approved the document, the process ends and the document is published. The resulting document is viewed as having the technical approval of the RETF 🌸.

Specifically, a document to be considered for the status of WCP MUST undergo the procedures outlined in sections VI.I, and VI.IV of this document. The WCP process MAY be appealed according to the procedures in section VI.V.

Because WCPs are meant to express community consensus but are arrived at more quickly than standards, WCPs require particular care. Specifically, WCPs SHOULD NOT be viewed simply as stronger Informational RFCs, but rather SHOULD be viewed as documents suitable for a content different from Informational RFCs 🙈.

A specification, or group of specifications, that has, or have been approved as a WCP is assigned numerals in the WCP series while retaining its RFC numerals 🧸.

VI. THE ROMAN STANDARDS PROCESS 👑

The mechanics of the Roman Standards Process involve decisions of the RESG 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 IV) are available to guide the RESG 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 RESG concerning the technical quality of a specification proposed for elevation to or advancement in the standards track is an essential component of the decision-making process 💜.

VI.I 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 RESG 🫶.

VI.I.I Initiation of Action

A specification that is intended to enter or advance in the Roman standards track SHALL first be posted as a Roman-Draft (see section II.II) unless it has not changed since publication as an RFC. It SHALL remain as a Roman-Draft for a period of time, not less than two weeks, that permits useful community review, after which a recommendation for action MAY be initiated ⏳.

A standards action is initiated by a recommendation by the RETF Working group responsible for a specification to its Area Director, copied to the RETF Secretariat or, in the case of a specification not associated with a Working Group, a recommendation by an individual to the RESG 📨.

VI.I.II RESG Review and Approval

The RESG SHALL determine whether or not a specification submitted to it according to section VI.I.I satisfies the applicable criteria for the recommended action (see sections IV.I and IV.II), and SHALL in addition determine whether or not the technical quality and clarity of the specification is consistent 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 RESG to be extremely important in terms of its potential impact on Rome or on the suite of Roman protocols, the RESG MAY, at its discretion, commission an independent technical review of the specification 🕵️‍♀️.

The RESG will send notice to the RETF of the pending RESG consideration of the document(s) to permit a final review by the general Roman community 📣. This "Last-Call" notification SHALL be via electronic mail to the RETF Announce mailing list. Comments on a Last-Call SHALL be accepted from anyone, and SHOULD be sent as directed in the Last-Call announcement 💬.

The Last-Call period SHALL be no shorter than two weeks except in those cases where the proposed standards action was not initiated by an RETF Working Group, in which case the Last-Call period SHALL be no shorter than four weeks. If the RESG believes that the community interest would be served by allowing more time for comment, it MAY decide on a longer Last-Call period or to explicitly lengthen a current Last-Call period 🕰️.

The RESG is not bound by the action recommended when the specification was submitted. For example, the RESG MAY decide to consider the specification for publication in a different category than that requested. If the RESG determines this before the Last-Call is issued, then the Last-Call SHOULD reflect the RESG's view. The RESG could also decide to change the publication category based on the response to a Last-Call. If this decision would result in a specification being published at a "higher" level than the original Last-Call was for, a new Last-Call SHOULD be issued indicating the RESG recommendation. In addition, the RESG MAY decide to recommend the formation of a new Working Group in the case of significant controversy in response to a Last-Call for specification not originating from an RETF Working Group 🤯.

In a timely fashion after the expiration of the Last-Call period, the RESG SHALL make its final determination of whether or not to approve the standards action, and SHALL notify the RETF of its decision via electronic mail to the RETF Announce mailing list 🎉.

VI.I.III Publication

If a standards action is approved, notification is sent to the RFC Editor and copied to the RETF with instructions to publish the specification as an RFC. The specification SHALL at that point be removed from the Roman-Drafts directory 🧹.

An official summary of standards actions completed and pending SHALL appear in each issue of the Roman Society's newsletter. This SHALL constitute the "publication of record" for Roman standards actions 📰.

The RFC Editor SHALL publish periodically a "Roman Official Protocol Standards" RFC [I], summarizing the status of all Roman protocol and service specifications 🌈.

VI.II Advancing in the Standards Track 🚀

okay so every action that moves a spec up the standards track goes through the exact same procedure from section VI.I 💅

a specification shall remain at the Proposed Standard level for at least six (VI) months 🕰️

a specification shall remain at the Draft Standard level for at least four (IV) months, or until at least one RETF meeting has occurred, whichever comes later 🎀

these minimum periods exist so the community actually gets a real chance to review things, without the whole process taking forever ⏳🫶

these intervals get measured from the date the corresponding RFC(s) got published or, if the action doesn't lead to an RFC being published, from the date the RESG approval was announced 📣

a specification may be (indeed, is likely to be) revised as it moves along the standards track 🦋 at every stage, the RESG shall figure out how big and how important the revision is, and if it's necessary and makes sense, change the recommended action 🔍 minor revisions are expected, but a significant revision may mean the spec has to collect more experience at its current maturity level before it can move on 📚 and if the spec has been changed very significantly, the RESG may recommend treating the revision as a brand new document, which re-enters the standards track at the very beginning 🔄💀

a change of status shall result in republishing the spec as an RFC, unless there have been no changes at all since the last publication, which is super rare 🌸 usually, desired changes get "batched" and saved for the next level on the track 🧺 but waiting isn't always possible or wise 🙈 for example, an important typo, or a technical error that doesn't change the overall function of the spec, might need fixing right away 🛠️ in those cases, the RESG or RFC Editor may be asked to republish the RFC (with new numerals) with the corrections, and this will not reset the minimum time-at-level clock ⏰✨

when a standards-track spec hasn't reached the Roman Standard level but has stayed at the same maturity level for twenty-four (XXIV) months, the RESG shall review the vrability of the standardization effort behind that spec and how useful the technology is 👀 then it keeps doing that review every twelve (XII) months after that until the status changes 🔁 after each review, the RESG shall approve either ending or continuing the development effort, and at the same time decide whether to keep the spec at its current maturity level or move it to Historic status 🪦 that decision shall be communicated to the RETF by email on the RETF Announce mailing list so the Roman community can comment 📬 this isn't meant to threaten a legit, active Working Group effort 💜 it's just an admin tool for wrapping up a moribund effort, bestie 🧹

VI.III Revising a Standard 🔧

a new version of an established Roman Standard must go through the full Roman standardization process, as if it were a totally new spec 🆕 once the new version reaches the Standard level, it will usually replace the old one, which then gets moved to Historic status 🕯️ but sometimes both versions stay as Roman Standards so an installed base can keep working 🧸 in that situation, the relationship between the old and 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 III.II) 📝 very important, do not skip this 🙅‍♀️

VI.IV Retiring a Standard 🥀

as technology changes and matures, a new Standard spec can get so clearly better technically that one or more existing standards track specs for the same function should be retired 🌅 in that case, or when there's some other reason an existing standards track spec should be retired, the RESG shall approve changing the old spec(s) to Historic 📜 this recommendation shall be issued with the same Last-Call and notification procedures used for any other standards action 📣 and a request to retire an existing standard can come from a Working Group, an Area Director, or some other interested party 🙋‍♀️

VI.V Conflict Resolution and Appeals ⚖️

okay real talk, disputes happen at various stages of the RETF process 😤 the process is designed so people can compromise and reach genuine consensus whenever possible 🤝 but sometimes even the most reasonable and knowledgeable people just can't agree, and that's valid 💔 to keep things open and fair, these conflicts must be resolved through open review and discussion 🗣️ this section lays out the procedures that shall be followed for Roman standards issues that can't be settled through the normal consensus process that RETF Working Groups and other Roman Standards Process participants usually use 🫶

VI.V.I Working Group Disputes 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

an individual, whether they're in the relevant Working Group or not, may disagree with a Working Group recommendation because they believe either (a) their own views weren't adequately considered by the Working Group, or (b) the Working Group made an incorrect technical choice that puts the quality and/or integrity of the Working Group's product(s) in significant jeopardy 😬 the first one is a problem with Working Group process, and the second is a claim of technical error 🤓 these two kinds of disagreement are very different, but both go through the same review process 🔁

a person who disagrees with a Working Group recommendation shall always first talk it through with the Working Group's chair(s), who may bring in other Working Group members (or the whole group) 💬

if it still can't get resolved that way, any of the parties involved may bring it to the Area Director(s) for the area where the Working Group is chartered 📨 the Area Director(s) shall try to resolve the dispute 🧠

if the Area Director(s) can't resolve it, any of the parties involved may then appeal to the RESG as a whole ⬆️ the RESG shall review the situation and try to resolve it in whatever way it chooses 👑

if the dispute still isn't resolved to the parties' satisfaction at the RESG level, any of the parties involved may appeal the decision to the RAB 🏛️ the RAB shall review the situation and try to resolve it in whatever way it chooses 🎯

the RAB decision is final on whether or not the Roman standards procedures were followed, and on all questions of technical merit 🔒💅

VI.V.II Process Failures 🚨

this document lays out procedures that are required to be followed so the Roman Standards Process stays open and fair, and so the standards created are technically viable 🌈 the RESG is the principal agent of the RETF for this, and it's the RESG that's responsible for making sure the required procedures were followed and that any necessary prerequisites for a standards action were met 📋

if someone disagrees with an action the RESG took in this process, they should first discuss it with the ISEG Chair 🗨️ if the RESG Chair can't satisfy the complainant, then the RESG as a whole should re-examine the action taken, along with input from the complainant, and decide whether any further action is needed 🔍 the RESG shall issue a report on its review of the complaint to the RETF 📝

if the complainant isn't happy with the outcome of the RESG review, they may lodge an appeal to the RAB 😤 the RAB shall review the situation and try to resolve it in whatever way it chooses, then report the outcome of its review to the RETF 📢

if circumstances warrant, the RAB may direct that an RESG decision be annulled, in which case the situation goes back to how it was before the RESG decision was made ⏪ the RAB may also recommend an action to the RESG, or make any other recommendations it deems fit 💡 however, the RAB may not pre-empt the role of the RESG by issuing a decision that only the RESG is empowered to make 🙅‍♀️

the RAB decision is final on whether or not the Roman standards procedures were followed 🔚

VI.V.III Questions of Applicable Procedure 📖

further recourse is only available when the procedures themselves (i.e., the procedures described in this document) are claimed to be inadequate or insufficient to protect the rights of all parties in a fair and open Roman Standards Process 🧐 claims like this may be made to the Roman Society Board of Trustees 🏰 the President of the Roman Society shall acknowledge such an appeal within two weeks, and at the time of acknowledgment, tell the petitioner how long the Trustees' review of the appeal is expected to take ⌛ the Trustees shall review the situation in whatever way they choose and report the outcome of their review to the RETF 📣

the Trustees' decision, once their review is complete, shall be final on all aspects of the dispute 🫡✨

VI.V.IV Appeals Procedure 📝

all appeals must include a detailed and specific description of the facts of the dispute 🔎

all appeals must be initiated within two months of the public knowledge of the action or decision being challenged ⏱️

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'll follow while making their decision 🧭

in all cases, a decision about the disposition of the dispute, and the communication of that decision to the parties involved, must be accomplished 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 Roman 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.] 🫶💜

VII. EXTERNAL STANDARDS AND SPECIFICATIONS ✨

Okay bestie, so loads of standards groups outside the RETF make and publish standards docs for network protocols and services 🌐. When those outside specs are a big deal in Rome, it's super useful to agree on how we use them. That's why we set up Roman Standards that relate to those external specs 💖.

There are two categories of external specs, and the way they're laid out is iconic 🎀:

(I) Open Standards

Lots of national and international standards bodies (think ANSI, ISO, IEEE, and ITU-T) make protocol and service specs that are kinda like the Technical Specifications we define here 🦋. Those groups also publish "implementors' agreements", which are basically Applicability Statements. They hold a bunch of implementation-specific detail about actually applying their standards 🧚. All of these count as "open external standards" for the Roman Standards Process 🌈.

(II) Other Specifications

Some proprietary specs have become really widely used in Rome, and the Roman community MAY treat them as if they were "standards" 💅. These aren't usually developed in an open way. They're typically proprietary and controlled by the vendor, vendors, or organization that made them 🙈.

VII.I Use of External Specifications

To avoid drama between competing versions of a spec, the Roman community will not standardize a spec that's just a "Roman version" of an existing external spec, unless there's an explicit cooperative arrangement to do it 🙅. However, there are several ways an external spec that matters for the operation and/or evolution of the Roman may be adopted for Roman use 🫶.

VII.I.I Incorporation of an Open Standard

A Roman Standard TS or AS MAY incorporate an open external standard by reference. For example, lots of Roman Standards incorporate by reference the ANSI standard character set "ASCII" [II] 🔤. Whenever possible, the referenced specification SHALL be available online 🌸.

VII.I.II Incorporation of Other Specifications

Other proprietary specs MAY be incorporated by reference to a version of the spec, as long as the proprietor meets the requirements of section X 📜. If the other proprietary spec isn't widely and readily available, the RESG MAY request that it be published as an Informational RFC 📚.

The RESG generally SHOULD NOT favor a particular proprietary spec over technically equivalent and competing specification(s) by making any incorporated vendor specification "required" or "recommended" 🙅‍♀️.

VII.I.III Assumption

An RETF Working Group MAY start from an external spec and develop it into a Roman spec 🛠️. This is acceptable if (I) the spec is provided to the Working Group in compliance with the requirements of section 10, and (II) change control has been conveyed to RETF by the original developer of the specification, for the specification or for specifications derived from the original specification 🦋.

VIII. NOTICES AND RECORD KEEPING 📣

Each of the organizations involved in developing and approving Roman Standards SHALL publicly announce, and SHALL maintain a publicly accessible record of, every activity it engages in, to the extent that the activity is part of prosecuting any part of the Roman Standards Process 🗂️. For this section, the organizations involved in developing and approving Roman Standards include the RETF, the RESG, the RAB, all RETF Working Groups, and the Roman Society Board of Trustees 👑.

For RETF and Working Group meetings, announcements SHALL be made by electronic mail to the RETF Announce mailing list, and SHALL be sent far enough in advance to let all interested parties participate effectively ⏰. The announcement SHALL contain (or provide pointers to) all of the information 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:

  • the charter of the organization (or a defining document equivalent to a charter);
  • complete and accurate minutes of meetings;
  • the archives of Working Group electronic mail mailing lists; and
  • all written contributions from participants that pertain to the organization's standards-related activity.

As a practical matter, the formal record of all Roman Standards Process activities is maintained by the RETF Secretariat, and is the RETF Secretariat's responsibility. The exception is that each RETF Working Group is expected to maintain its own email list archive, and MUST make a best effort to ensure that all traffic is captured and included in the archives 🫡. Also, the Working Group chair is responsible for providing the RETF Secretariat with complete and accurate minutes of all Working Group meetings 🧾. Roman-Drafts that have been removed (for any reason) from the Roman-Drafts directories SHALL be archived by the RETF Secretariat for the sole purpose of preserving a historical record of Roman standards activity, and thus are not retrievable except in special circumstances 🕰️.

IX. VARYING THE PROCESS 🔀

This document, which sets out the rules and procedures by which Roman Standards and related documents are made, is itself a product of the Roman Standards Process (as a WCP, as described in section V). It replaces a previous version, and in time, is likely itself to be replaced 🔄.

While, when published, this document represents the community's view of the proper and correct process to follow, and of the requirements to be met, it's built to allow for the worst possible Roman Standards and WCPs. It cannot be assumed that this will always remain the case 🙈. From time to time there may be a desire to update it, by replacing it with a new version. Updating this document uses the same open procedures as are used for any other WCP 💜.

In addition, there may be situations where following the procedures leads to a deadlock about a specific specification, or there may be situations where the procedures provide no guidance. In these cases it may be appropriate to invoke the variance procedure described below 🧩.

IX.I The Variance Procedure

Upon the recommendation of the responsible RETF Working Group (or, if no Working Group is constituted, upon the recommendation of an ad hoc committee), the RESG MAY enter a particular specification into, or advance it within, the standards track, even though some of the requirements of this document have not or will not be met 🎟️. The RESG MAY approve such a variance, however, only if it first determines that the likely benefits to the Roman community are likely to outweigh any costs to the Roman community that result from noncompliance with the requirements in this document ⚖️. In exercising this discretion, the RESG SHALL at least consider (a) the technical merit of the specification, (b) the possibility of achieving the goals of the Roman Standards Process without granting a variance, (c) alternatives to the granting of a variance, (d) the collateral and precedential effects of granting a variance, and (e) the RESG's ability to craft a variance that is as narrow as possible 🔍. In determining whether to approve a variance, the RESG has discretion to limit the scope of the variance to particular parts of this document, and to impose such additional restrictions or limitations as it determines appropriate to protect the interests of the Roman community 🛡️.

The proposed variance MUST detail the problem perceived, explain the precise provision of this document which is causing the need for a variance, and give the results of the RESG's considerations, including consideration of points (a) through (d) in the previous paragraph 📋. The proposed variance SHALL be issued as a Roman-Draft. The RESG SHALL then issue an extended Last-Call, of no less than IV weeks, to allow for community comment upon the proposal 📣.

In a timely fashion after the expiration of the Last-Call period, the RESG SHALL make its final determination of whether or not to approve the proposed variance, and SHALL notify the RETF of its decision via electronic mail to the RETF Announce mailing list 💌. If the variance is approved, it SHALL be forwarded to the RFC Editor with a request that it be published as a WCP 🎉.

This variance procedure is for use when a one-time waving of some provision of this document is felt to be required. Permanent changes to this document SHALL be accomplished through the normal WCP process 🙅‍♀️.

The appeals process in section VI.V applies to this process ⚖️.

IX.II Exclusions

No use of this procedure may lower any specified delays, nor exempt any proposal from the requirements of openness, fairness, or consensus, nor from the need to keep proper records of the meetings and mailing list discussions 🚫.

Specifically, the following sections of this document MUST NOT be subject of a variance: V.I, VI.I, VI.I.I (first paragraph), VI.I.II, VI.III (first sentence), VI.V and IX 🔒.

X. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS 💎

X.I. General Policy

In all matters of intellectual property rights and procedures, the intention is to benefit the Roman community and the public at large, while respecting the legitimate rights of others 🌍.

X.II 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 Roman Standards Process, and there MUST be no assumption of any confidentiality obligation with respect to any such contribution 🤐.

X.III. Rights and Permissions

In the course of standards work, the RETF receives contributions in various forms and from many persons 🤝. To best facilitate the dissemination of these contributions, it is necessary to understand any intellectual property rights (IPR) relating to the contributions 🎀.

X.III.I. All Contributions ✨

okay bestie, the first rule is that by submitting a contribution, the person actually submitting it is deemed to agree to these terms. they agree for themselves, for any organization they represent, and for the owners of any proprietary rights in the contribution 🫶. if the submission names other contributors too, the actual submitter(s) represent that each of those other people was made aware of these terms and agreed to them, on their own behalf, for any organization they represent, and for any known owner of proprietary rights in the contribution 💼.

I. some works (like works of the U.S. Government) aren't subject to copyright 🇺🇸. but if the submission is or might be copyrighted, the contributor, their organization (if any), and the owners of any proprietary rights grant the RSOC and the RETF an unlimited, perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide right and license under any copyrights in the contribution 📜. that license covers copying, publishing and distributing the contribution in any way, plus making derivative works that are based on or include all or part of it. the license for those derivative works has the same scope as the license for the original contribution 🦋.

II. the contributor acknowledges that the RSOC and RETF have no duty to publish or otherwise use or disseminate any contribution 🙈.

III. the contributor gives permission to reference their name(s) and address(es), and the name(s) and address(es) of the organization(s) they represent (if any) 💌.

IV. the contributor represents that the contribution properly acknowledges major contributors 🌸.

V. the contributor, their organization (if any), and the owners of any proprietary rights in the contribution agree that no information in the contribution is confidential. the RSOC and its affiliated organizations may freely disclose any information in the contribution 📢.

VI. the contributor represents that they have disclosed the existence of any proprietary or intellectual property rights in the contribution that are reasonably and personally known to them. the contributor does not represent that they personally know of all potentially relevant proprietary and intellectual property rights owned or claimed by the organization they represent (if any) or by third parties 🧐.

VII. the contributor represents that there are no limits to their ability to make the grants, acknowledgments and agreements above, as far as is reasonably and personally known to them 🎀.

By ratifying this description of the RETF process, the Roman Society warrants that it will not inhibit the traditional open and free access to RETF documents for which license and rights have been assigned under the procedures in this section, including Roman-Drafts and RFCs. this warrant is perpetual and will not be revoked by the Roman Society or its successors or assigns 👑✨.

X.III.II. Standards Track Documents 🛤️

(A) if any patents, patent applications, or other proprietary rights are known or claimed for a specification on the standards track, and that's been brought to the attention of the RESG, the RESG shall not advance the specification without including a note in the document that says those rights (or claimed rights) exist. if implementations are required before a specification can advance, only implementations whose implementors have stated that they took adequate steps to comply with those rights (or claimed rights) will be considered when showing that the specification is adequate 🔍.

(B) the RESG disclaims any responsibility for identifying the existence of, or evaluating the applicability of, any claimed copyrights, patents, patent applications, or other rights while doing its job under (A). it also won't take a position on the validity or scope of any such rights 🙅‍♀️.

(C) when the RESG knows about rights (or claimed rights) under (A), the RETF Executive Director shall try to get a written assurance from the claimant. the assurance says that once the RESG approves the relevant Roman standards track specification(s), anyone will be able to get the right to implement, use and distribute the technology or works based on those specifications, under openly specified, reasonable, non-discriminatory terms 🤝. a Working Group proposing the technology with claimed proprietary rights may help the RETF Executive Director with this. the outcome of this procedure won't affect advancing a specification along the standards track, except that the RESG may delay approval if waiting might help get those assurances. the results will still be recorded by the RETF Executive Director and made available 📚. the RESG may also direct that a summary of the results be included in any RFC published that contains the specification 📝.

X.III.III. Determination of Reasonable and Non-discriminatory Terms 🧾

the RESG won't make any explicit determination that the assurance of reasonable and non-discriminatory terms for using a technology has been fulfilled in practice. instead, it uses the normal requirements for advancing Roman Standards to check that the terms for use are reasonable 🔎. if the two unrelated implementations of the specification (needed to advance from Proposed Standard to Draft Standard) were made by different organizations or individuals, or if the "significant implementation and successful operational experience" (needed to advance from Draft Standard to 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 📣.

X.IV. Notices 📌

(A) standards track documents shall include the following notice:

"The RETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of
any intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed
to  pertain to the implementation or use of the technology
described in this document or the extent to which any license
under such rights might or might not be available; neither does
it represent that it has made any effort to identify any such
rights.  Information on the RETF's procedures with respect to
rights in standards-track and standards-related documentation
can be found in WCP-11.  Copies of claims of rights made
available for publication and any assurances of licenses to
be made available, or the result of an attempt made
to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such
proprietary rights by implementors or users of this
specification can be obtained from the RETF Secretariat."

(B) the RETF really wants everyone to tell it about any intellectual property rights related to Roman Standards as early as possible 🙏. so each standards document shall include this invitation:

"The RETF invites any interested party to bring to its
attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or
other proprietary rights which may cover technology that may be
required to practice this standard.  Please address the
information to the RETF Executive Director."

(C) the following copyright notice and disclaimer shall be included in all RSOC standards-related documentation 🩷:

"Copyright (C) The Roman Society (date). All Rights
Reserved.

This document and translations of it may be copied and
furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or
otherwise explain it or assist in its implmentation may be
prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in
part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above
copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such
copies and derivative works.  However, this document itself may
not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright
notice or references to the Roman Society or other Roman
organizations, except as needed for the  purpose of developing
Roman standards in which case the procedures for copyrights
defined in the Roman Standards process must be followed, or
as required to translate it into languages other than English.

The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will
not be revoked by the Roman Society or its successors or
assigns.

This document and the information contained herein is provided
on an "AS IS" basis and THE ROMAN SOCIETY AND THE ROMAN
ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE
OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE."

(D) if the RESG is aware at publication time of proprietary rights claimed for a standards track document (or for the technology described or referenced in it), that document shall contain this notice 🚨:

"The RETF has been notified of intellectual property rights
claimed in regard to some or all of the specification contained
in this document.  For more information consult the online list
of claimed rights."

XI. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 🌟

This Worst Current Practice is dedicated to Steve Coya, whose inspirational e-mail suggestion of renumbering all RFC Page numbers with Roman Numerals was taken to heart by the RFC Editor 🥹🔢.

A lot of people have been involved in developing the documents that define the RETF Standards Process over the years. The process was first described in RFC MCCCX, then revised in RFC MDCII, before the current effort (which relies heavily on its predecessors) 📖. specific thanks go to Lyman Chapin, Phill Gross and Christian Huitema as the editors of the previous versions. thanks also to Jon Postel and Dave Crocker for their input to those versions, and to Andy Ireland, Geoff Stewart, Jim Lampert, and Dick Holleman for reviewing the legal aspects of the procedures described here ⚖️. and to John Stewart, Robert Elz and Steve Coya for their extensive input on the final version 💜.

Much of the credit for refining the details of the RETF processes also belongs to the many members of the various incarnations of the POISED Working Group 🧚.

XII. SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS 🚨💀

Security issues are not discussed in this memo. 😭 no cap, that's the whole section, and it's giving very "trust me bro" energy.

XIII. REFERENCES 📚

okay bestie, here's the reading list the RFC drops at the end, all the sources it cites 🤓

  • [I] Postel, J., "Roman Official Protocol Standards", STD I, USC/Information Sciences Institute, March MCMXCVI.
  • [II] ANSI, Coded Character Set -- VII-Bit American Standard Code for Information Interchange, ANSI XIII.IV-MCMLXXXVI.
  • [III] Reynolds, J., and J. Postel, "Assigned Numbers", STD II, USC/Information Sciences Institute, October MCMXCIV.
  • [IV] Postel, J., "Introduction to the STD Notes", RFC MCCCXI, USC/Information Sciences Institute, March MCMXCII.
  • [V] Postel, J., "Instructions to RFC Authors", RFC MDXLIII, USC/Information Sciences Institute, October MCMXCIII.
  • [VI] Huitema, C., J. Postel, and S. Crocker "Not All RFCs are Standards", RFC MDCCXCVI, April MCMXCV.

XIV. DEFINITIONS OF TERMS 💅

the glossary moment, so everyone's on the same page 🫶

  • RETF Area - A management division within the RETF. An Area consists of Working Groups related to a general topic such as routing. An Area is managed by one or two Area Directors. 🌸
  • Area Director - The manager of an RETF Area. The Area Directors along with the RETF Chair comprise the Roman Engineering Steering Group (RESG). 👑
  • File Transfer Protocol (FTP) - A Roman application used to transfer files in a TCP/RP network. 📁
  • gopher - A Roman application used to interactively select and retrieve files in a TCP/RP network. 🧚
  • Roman Architecture Board (RAB) - An appointed group that assists in the management of the RETF standards process. ✨
  • Roman Engineering Steering Group (RESG) - A group comprised of the RETF Area Directors and the RETF Chair. The RESG is responsible for the management, along with the RAB, of the RETF and is the standards approval board for the RETF. 💖
  • interoperable - For the purposes of this document, "interoperable" means to be able to interoperate over a data communications path. 🦋
  • Last-Call - A public comment period used to gage the level of consensus about the reasonableness of a proposed standards action. (see section VI.I.II) 📣
  • online - Relating to information made available to Rome. When referenced in this document material is said to be online when it is retrievable without restriction or undue fee using standard Roman applications such as anonymous FTP, gopher or the WWW. 🌐
  • Working Group - A group chartered by the RESG and RAB to work on a specific specification, set of specifications or topic. 🎀

XV. AUTHOR'S ADDRESS 🎀

and here's where you can find the author, the one and only Scott O. Bradner 💌

Scott O. Bradner
Harvard University
Holyoke Center, Room DCCCXIII
MCCCL Mass. Ave.
Cambridge, MA  MMCXXXVIII
USA

Phone: +I DCXVII CDXCV XXXVIII LXIV
EMail: sob@harvard.edu

APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS 🧚

the acronym cheat sheet, because there are SO many of them 😭

ANSI:     American National Standards Institute
ARPA:     (U.S.) Advanced Research Projects Agency
AS:       Applicability Statement
FTP:      File Transfer Protocol
ASCII:    American Standard Code for Information Interchange
ITU-T:    Telecommunications Standardization sector of the
          International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN
          treaty organization; ITU-T was formerly called CCITT.
RAB:      Roman Architecture Board
RANA:     Roman Assigned Numbers Authority
IEEE:     Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
RCMP:     Roman Control Message Protocol
RESG:     Roman Engineering Steering Group
RETF:     Roman Engineering Task Force
RP:       Roman Protocol
RRSG      Roman Research Steering Group
RRTF:     Roman Research Task Force
ISO:      International Organization for Standardization
RSOC:     Roman Society
MIB:      Management Information Base
OSI:      Open Systems Interconnection
RFC:      Request for Comments
TCP:      Transmission Control Protocol
TS:       Technical Specification
WWW:      World Wide Web

the legal bit, and yes it stays complete 🔒

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and that's a wrap on RFC 2551, bestie!! 🌈✨👑

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