RFC 4450

Getting Rid of the Cruft: Report from an Experiment in Identifying and Reclassifying Obsolete Standards Documents

📅 published March 2006, from ietf

Getting Rid of the Cruft: Report from an Experiment in Identifying and Reclassifying Obsolete Standards Documents 💅✨

okay bestie, so this is RFC 4450 🎀. It's an Informational doc from March 2006, written by E. Lear (Cisco Systems GmbH) and H. Alvestrand (Cisco Systems). It's from the Network Working Group. Since it's Informational, it doesn't specify an Internet standard at all. Also, the header doesn't list any obsoletes or updates, so it isn't replacing or changing anything else 🦋.

Status of This Memo 📜

This memo gives info to the Internet community 🌸. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution is unlimited, so share away 💜.

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).

Abstract 🧚

this memo documents an experiment where we reviewed and classified Proposed Standards that don't reflect documented practice in the world today 👀. the result is a set of docs that were marked as Proposed Standards but are now reclassified as Historic. it's giving spring cleaning 🧹.

Table of Contents 🍓

1. Introduction and History ........................................1
2. Bulk Decommissioning Procedure ..................................2
3. Input, Mailing list, Output, and Observations ...................2
4. Discussion ......................................................4
5. Next Steps ......................................................5
6. IANA Considerations .............................................6
7. Security Considerations .........................................6
8. Acknowledgements ................................................6
9. Normative References ............................................6

1. Introduction and History ✨

ok so RFC 2026, and RFC 1602 before it, set timelines for reviewing immature (draft or proposed) standards 📅. the whole point of that review was to figure out whether those docs should be advanced, retired, or developed further [1].

this procedure has literally never been followed in IETF history 🙈. because of that, community members said that retiring a doc to Historic is a big deal and should be justified carefully. that's how we got docs like RFC 2556 (OSI Connectionless Transport Services on top of UDP Applicability Statement for Historic Status) and RFC 3166 (Request to Move RFC 1403 to Historic Status). 💅

those docs take a lot of time and effort from authors, area directors, and the RFC Editor 😭.

2. Bulk Decommissioning Procedure 🔥

from Fall 2004 through Spring 2005, the authors ran an experiment to see how many Proposed Standards could be considered obsolete. here's how it went:

  • Identify a group of documents that are standards.
  • Assume by default that each document will be retired.
  • Create a mailing list for discussion with a policy of open access.
  • Allow any document to be removed from the list of those to be retired for virtually any reason, so long as a reason is provided.
  • Present the list to the working group, IETF, and IESG for review.
  • Revise list based on comments.
  • Write up results.

the authors originally wanted to present a list of docs to be reclassified as Historic. the NEWTRK working group backed this idea 💖. the IESG, and the IETF as a community, makes the final call. we'll dig into that more below 🫶.

3. Input, Mailing list, Output, and Observations 🦋

we started with every RFC numbered below 2000 that had a status of Proposed Standard 📚. the input we used, starting November 25, 2004, is in Appendix A. there were some 125 docs in total.

a mailing list, old-standards@alvestrand.no, got set up to discuss and remove candidates from the list 💌. a call for participation went out to the IETF-Announce list on or around November 15, 2004. there were 29 members on the list and about 244 messages got sent 🤯. people were encouraged to think about whether an implementer would either write a new implementation or maintain an existing one. that's the vibe check 💅.

after some months the list got way smaller ✂️. it was forwarded to the IETF discussion list on December 16, 2004, and to the NEWTRK working group list for wider review.

during review, RFCs 1518 and 1519 got removed, because work is ongoing to revise them 🛠️. RFCs 1381, 1382, 1471, 1472, 1473, 1582, 1598, and 1755 also got removed, since they were believed to be actively in use 🙌. RFC 1584 got removed for an expected future dependency 🔮.

here are the results 👑:

RFC 1234 (Tunneling IPX Traffic through IP Networks)
RFC 1239 (Reassignment of Experimental MIBs to Standard MIBs)
RFC 1276 (Replication and Distributed Operations Extensions to
         provide an Internet Directory Using X.500)
RFC 1285 (FDDI Management Information Base)
RFC 1314 (A File Format for the Exchange of Images in the Internet)
RFC 1328 (X.400 1988 to 1984 Downgrading)
RFC 1370 (Applicability Statement for OSPF)
RFC 1378 (The PPP AppleTalk Control Protocol (ATCP))
RFC 1397 (Default Route Advertisement in BGP2 and BGP3 Version of
         the Border Gateway Protocol)
RFC 1414 (Identification MIB)
RFC 1415 (FTP-FTAM Gateway Specification)
RFC 1418 (SNMP over OSI)
RFC 1419 (SNMP over AppleTalk)
RFC 1421 (Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part I:
         Message Encryption and Authentication Procedures)
RFC 1422 (Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part
         II: Certificate-Based Key Management)
RFC 1423 (Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part
         III: Algorithms, Modes, and Identifiers)
RFC 1424 (Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part
         IV: Key Certification and Related Services)
RFC 1461 (SNMP MIB Extension for Multiprotocol Interconnect over
         X.25)
RFC 1469 (IP Multicast over Token-Ring Local Area Networks)
RFC 1474 (The Definitions of Managed Objects for the Bridge Network
         Control Protocol of the Point-to-Point Protocol)
RFC 1478 (An Architecture for Inter-Domain Policy Routing)
RFC 1479 (Inter-Domain Policy Routing Protocol Specification:
         Version 1)
RFC 1494 (Equivalences between 1988 X.400 and RFC-822 Message
         Bodies)
RFC 1496 (Rules for Downgrading Messages from X.400/88 to X.400/84)
         when MIME Content-types Are Present in the Messages

RFC 1502 (X.400 Use of Extended Character Sets)
RFC 1512 (FDDI Management Information Base)
RFC 1513 (Token Ring Extensions to the Remote Network Monitoring
         MIB)
RFC 1525 (Definitions of Managed Objects for Source Routing
         Bridges)
RFC 1552 (The PPP Internetworking Packet Exchange Control Protocol
         (IPXCP))
RFC 1553 (Compressing IPX Headers over WAN Media (CIPX))
RFC 1648 (Postmaster Convention for X.400 Operations)
RFC 1666 (Definitions of Managed Objects for SNA NAUs using SMIv2)
RFC 1692 (Transport Multiplexing Protocol (TMux))
RFC 1696 (Modem Management Information Base (MIB) Using SMIv2)
RFC 1742 (AppleTalk Management Information Base II)
RFC 1747 (Definitions of Managed Objects for SNA Data Link Control
         (SDLC) Using SMIv2)
RFC 1749 (IEEE 802.5 Station Source Routing MIB using SMIv2)
RFC 1763 (The PPP Banyan Vines Control Protocol (BVCP))
RFC 1764 (The PPP XNS IDP Control Protocol (XNSCP))
RFC 1828 (IP Authentication using Keyed MD5)
RFC 1835 (Architecture of the WHOIS++ Service)
RFC 1848 (MIME Object Security Services)
RFC 1913 (Architecture of the Whois++ Index Service)
RFC 1914 (How to Interact with a Whois++ Mesh)

one more doc, RFC 1829 (the ESP DES-CBC transform), was suggested for Historic status 🤔. but the group agreed the community would be better served by a separate doc describing the security implications of using this algorithm 🔐.

4. Discussion 💭

when you scroll through this list, you can see a few classes of docs 👀:

  • Multiprotocol functions for protocols that are obsolete, such as Appletalk or X.400.
  • Protocols that were defined but not used, such as PEM or Whois++.

either way, you need a judgment call on whether a protocol is both in use and likely to be supported ⚖️. the experiment's parameters were conservative enough to avoid cases where protocols were likely to keep being supported. anyone could remove a doc from the list for any reason. honestly, in some cases we may have been too conservative 😅. so it's also worth looking at the categories of docs that got removed from the list:

  • specifications known to be in full use that should be considered for advancement
  • specifications that are currently under review within the IETF process
  • Specifications that were previously considered for deprecation and rejected.

the last category is only telnet options, which were reviewed in the late 1990s 🕰️. arguably, those options should be reconsidered for deprecation. realistically though, nobody is going to develop a new version of telnet that supports the TACACS option, for instance 💀. still, as a first cut, we were left with 61 docs that could be reclassified 🎀.

in at least one case, talking about deprecation has sparked work on docs 🌈. for instance, there's a Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) update in progress 🚀.

5. Next Steps 🦋

like we said in the intro, the current process requires reconsidering immature standards, and that review just isn't happening right now 😤. this experiment tried to come up with a procedure that could make that review easier. the final step was for the working group to consider what to do next. there were four options:

  1. Accept the results of this experiment, issue a last call, and deprecate standards that remain on the list past last call. This is an aggressive approach that would preserve the intent of RFC 2026.
  2. Do not accept the results of this experiment and update RFC 2026 to indicate a new practice.
  3. Revise the procedure based on the results of this experiment, based on feedback from the IESG. This option might take into account the different types of old standards as described above.
  4. Do nothing. This would leave the IETF and the IESG practice inconsistent with documented practice.

the working group chose option one 🏆. the RFC Editor is asked to mark the standards listed above as Historic 📝.

also, just so you know, we only looked at proposed standards, and only RFCs numbered below 2000 🔍. if either option one or option three gets accepted, draft standards and anything older than several years should also be considered 🗓️.

finally, if NEWTRK delivers a new document classification system, these docs might be a basis for one or more new categories in it 🧩.

6. IANA Considerations 🧾

the IANA databases contain references to lots of these docs 📚. the docs are still the normative definitions for these values, and the IANA databases don't hold any info about the status of the RFCs they refer to 🙃.

so, IANA shouldn't need to do anything based on this document 💅.

7. Security Considerations ✨

okay bestie, this one is short but it's giving serious 🔒 documents that have security problems may need some extra attention, and individual documents should say what the concerns are, plus when or how an implementation can be deployed to ease them. main character energy for security 💅

8. Acknowledgements 🫶

this experiment would literally have been totally useless without the people on the old-standards mailing list 💖 shoutout to Pekka Savalo, Bob Braden, and John Klensin, who were super active in the discussions and are absolutely iconic 👑

9. Normative References 📚

okay here's the one reference we need:

  • [1] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996.

Appendix A. Input RFCs 🌈

these are all the input RFCs that went into this work, no cap, it's a whole list 🥹

RFC 0698 (Telnet Extended ASCII Option)
RFC 0726 (Remote Controlled Transmission and Echoing Telnet Option)
RFC 0727 (Telnet Logout Option)
RFC 0735 (Revised Telnet Byte Macro Option)
RFC 0736 (Telnet SUPDUP Option)
RFC 0749 (Telnet SUPDUP-Output Option)
RFC 0779 (Telnet send-location Option)
RFC 0885 (Telnet End of Record Option)
RFC 0927 (TACACS User Identification Telnet Option)
RFC 0933 (Output Marking Telnet Option)
RFC 0946 (Telnet Terminal Location Number Option)
RFC 0977 (Network News Transfer Protocol)
RFC 1041 (Telnet 3270 Regime Option)
RFC 1043 (Telnet Data Entry Terminal Option: DODIIS Implementation)
RFC 1053 (Telnet X.3 PAD Option)
RFC 1073 (Telnet Window sSize Option)
RFC 1079 (Telnet Terminal Speed Option)
RFC 1091 (Telnet Terminal-type Option)
RFC 1096 (Telnet X Display Location Option)
RFC 1144 (Compressing TCP/IP Headers for Low-speed Serial Links)
RFC 1195 (Use of OSI IS-IS for Routing in TCP/IP and Dual)
RFC 1234 (Tunneling IPX Traffic through IP Networks)
RFC 1239 (Reassignment of Experimental MIBs to Standard MIBs)
RFC 1256 (ICMP Router Discovery Messages)
RFC 1269 (Definitions of Managed Objects for the Border Gateway
         Protocol: Version 3)
RFC 1274 (The COSINE and Internet X.500 Schema)
RFC 1276 (Replication and Distributed Operations Extensions to
         Provide an Internet Directory Using X.500)
RFC 1277 (Encoding Network Addresses to Support Operation over Non-
         OSI Lower Layers)
RFC 1285 (FDDI Management Information Base)
RFC 1314 (A File Format for the Exchange of Images in the Internet)
RFC 1323 (TCP Extensions for High Performance)
RFC 1328 (X.400 1988 to 1984 Downgrading)
RFC 1332 (The PPP Internet Protocol Control Protocol (IPCP))
RFC 1370 (Applicability Statement for OSPF)
RFC 1372 (Telnet Remote Flow Control Option)
RFC 1377 (The PPP OSI Network Layer Control Protocol (OSINLCP))
RFC 1378 (The PPP AppleTalk Control Protocol (ATCP))
RFC 1381 (SNMP MIB Extension for X.25 LAPB)
RFC 1382 (SNMP MIB Extension for the X.25 Packet Layer)
RFC 1397 (Default Route Advertisement in BGP2 and BGP3 Version of
         the Border Gateway Protocol)
RFC 1413 (Identification Protocol)
RFC 1414 (Identification MIB)
RFC 1415 (FTP-FTAM Gateway Specification)
RFC 1418 (SNMP over OSI)
RFC 1419 (SNMP over AppleTalk)
RFC 1420 (SNMP over IPX)
RFC 1421 (Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part I:
         Message Encryption and Authentication Procedures)
RFC 1422 (Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part
         II: Certificate-Based Key Management)
RFC 1423 (Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part
         III: Algorithms, Modes, and Identifiers)
RFC 1424 (Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part
         IV: Key Certification and Related Services)
RFC 1461 (SNMP MIB extension for Multiprotocol Interconnect over
         X.25)
RFC 1469 (IP Multicast over Token-Ring Local Area Networks)
RFC 1471 (The Definitions of Managed Objects for the Link Control
         Protocol of the Point-to-Point Protocol)
RFC 1472 (The Definitions of Managed Objects for the Security
         Protocols of the Point-to-Point Protocol)
RFC 1473 (The Definitions of Managed Objects for the IP Network
         Control Protocol of the Point-to-Point Protocol)
RFC 1474 (The Definitions of Managed Objects for the Bridge Network
         Control Protocol of the Point-to-Point Protocol)
RFC 1478 (An Architecture for Inter-Domain Policy Routing)
RFC 1479 (Inter-Domain Policy Routing Protocol Specification:
         Version 1)
RFC 1494 (Equivalences between 1988 X.400 and RFC-822 Message
         Bodies)
RFC 1496 (Rules for Downgrading Messages from X.400/88 to X.400/84)
RFC 1502 (X.400 Use of Extended Character Sets)
RFC 1510 (The Kerberos Network Authentication Service (V5))
RFC 1512 (FDDI Management Information Base)
RFC 1513 (Token Ring Extensions to the Remote Network Monitoring
         MIB)
RFC 1517 (Applicability Statement for the Implementation of
         Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR))
RFC 1518 (An Architecture for IP Address Allocation with CIDR)
RFC 1519 (Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR): an Address
         Assignment and Aggregation Strategy)
RFC 1525 (Definitions of Managed Objects for Source Routing
         Bridges)
RFC 1552 (The PPP Internetworking Packet Exchange Control Protocol)
RFC 1553 (Compressing IPX Headers over WAN Media (CIPX))
RFC 1570 (PPP LCP Extensions)
RFC 1572 (Telnet Environment Option)
RFC 1582 (Extensions to RIP to Support Demand Circuits)
RFC 1584 (Multicast Extensions to OSPF)
RFC 1598 (PPP in X.25)
RFC 1618 (PPP over ISDN)
RFC 1628 (UPS Management Information Base)
RFC 1648 (Postmaster Convention for X.400 Operations)
RFC 1663 (PPP Reliable Transmission)
RFC 1666 (Definitions of Managed Objects for SNA NAUs Using SMIv2)
RFC 1692 (Transport Multiplexing Protocol (TMux))
RFC 1696 (Modem Management Information Base (MIB) Using SMIv2)
RFC 1697 (Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) Management)
RFC 1731 (IMAP4 Authentication Mechanisms)
RFC 1734 (POP3 AUTHentication command)
RFC 1738 (Uniform Resource Locators (URL))
RFC 1740 (MIME Encapsulation of Macintosh Files - MacMIME)
RFC 1742 (AppleTalk Management Information Base II)
RFC 1747 (Definitions of Managed Objects for SNA Data Link Control)
RFC 1749 (IEEE 802.5 Station Source Routing MIB Using SMIv2)
RFC 1752 (The Recommendation for the IP Next Generation Protocol)
RFC 1755 (ATM Signaling Support for IP over ATM)
RFC 1763 (The PPP Banyan Vines Control Protocol (BVCP))
RFC 1764 (The PPP XNS IDP Control Protocol (XNSCP))
RFC 1767 (MIME Encapsulation of EDI Objects)
RFC 1793 (Extending OSPF to Support Demand Circuits)
RFC 1808 (Relative Uniform Resource Locators)
RFC 1812 (Requirements for IP Version 4 Routers)
RFC 1828 (IP Authentication using Keyed MD5)
RFC 1829 (The ESP DES-CBC Transform)
RFC 1831 (RPC: Remote Procedure Call Protocol Specification Version
         2)
RFC 1833 (Binding Protocols for ONC RPC Version 2)
RFC 1835 (Architecture of the WHOIS++ Service)
RFC 1847 (Security Multiparts for MIME: Multipart/Signed and
         Multipart/Encrypted)
RFC 1848 (MIME Object Security Services)
RFC 1913 (Architecture of the Whois++ Index Service)
RFC 1914 (How to Interact with a Whois++ Mesh)
RFC 1928 (SOCKS Protocol Version 5)
RFC 1929 (Username/Password Authentication for SOCKS V5)
RFC 1961 (GSS-API Authentication Method for SOCKS Version 5)
RFC 1962 (The PPP Compression Control Protocol (CCP))
RFC 1964 (The Kerberos Version 5 GSS-API Mechanism)
RFC 1968 (The PPP Encryption Control Protocol (ECP))
RFC 1973 (PPP in Frame Relay)
RFC 1982 (Serial Number Arithmetic)
RFC 1985 (SMTP Service Extension for Remote Message Queue Starting)
RFC 1995 (Incremental Zone Transfer in DNS)
RFC 1996 (A Mechanism for Prompt Notification of Zone Changes (DNS
         NOTIFY))
RFC 1997 (BGP Communities Attribute)

Authors' Addresses 💌

Eliot Lear Cisco Systems GmbH Glatt-com Glattzentrum, ZH CH-8301 Switzerland

Phone: +41 1 878 7525 EMail: lear@cisco.com

Harald Tveit Alvestrand Cisco Systems Weidemanns vei 27 7043 Trondheim Norway

EMail: harald@alvestrand.no

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).

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