Re: RFC 1959 to Historic? (revised)

["Kurt D. Zeilenga" <Kurt@OpenLDAP.org>]

At 12:52 PM 2/8/01 -0500, Mark C Smith wrote:
>"Kurt D. Zeilenga" wrote:
>> 
>> My previous post had an unfortunate typo.  This corrects the typo
>> and provides references.
>> 
>> In a review of old LDAP RFCs, I noted that "An LDAP URL Format"
>> (RFC1959) and "The LDAP URL Format" (RFC2255) are both currently listed
>> as Proposed Standards.   As there should not be two specifications
>> of the "ldap" URL scheme and clearly RFC2255 supercedes RFC1959,
>> I believe it appropriate to recommend to the IESG that RFC1959 be
>> moved to historic status.  Is there any reason why such a
>> recommendation should not be made?
>> 
>>  http://www.rfc-editor.org/categories/rfc-proposed.html
>>  ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc1959.txt
>>  ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2255.txt
>
>Well, I think the correct action would have been for 2255 to obsolete
>1959 (I am not sure why that was not done when 2255 was published, and
>it probably can't be done now).

RFCs cannot be altered after publication with a few exceptions.
One of those is the addition of Obsoleted By: in the header.

>A similar question can be raised for 1960 ("A String Representation of
>LDAP Search Filters") and 2254 ("The String Representation of LDAP
>Search Filters").

Yes.  I posted a suggestion regarding to this separately as any
recommendation made would be separate.

>Perhaps the view was that the older RFCs are LDAPv2 specs. (e.g., RFC
>2251 does not obsolete RFC 1777 either).

But RFC 1777 was a Draft Standard.   I think someone thought,
incorrectly, that RFC 1959 and RFC 1960 were Draft Standards.

>It is clearly confusing to have active, standards track RFCs that the
>community views as "obsolete" or "historic."

I concur.