RFC 1410 (rfc1410) - Page 3 of 35

IAB Official Protocol Standards

RFC 1410                     IAB Standards                    March 1993


   goal of co-ordinating the evolution of the Internet protocols; this
   co-ordination has become quite important as the Internet protocols
   are increasingly in general commercial use.  The definitive
   description of the Internet standards process is found in RFC-1310.

   The majority of Internet protocol development and standardization
   activity takes place in the working groups of the Internet
   Engineering Task Force.

   Protocols which are to become standards in the Internet go through a
   series of states or maturity levels (proposed standard, draft
   standard, and standard) involving increasing amounts of scrutiny and
   testing.  When a protocol completes this process it is assigned a STD
   number (see RFC-1311).  At each step, the Internet Engineering
   Steering Group (IESG) of the IETF must make a recommendation for
   advancement of the protocol and the IAB must ratify it.  If a
   recommendation is not ratified, the protocol is remanded to the IETF
   for further work.

   To allow time for the Internet community to consider and react to
   standardization proposals, the IAB imposes a minimum delay of 6
   months before a proposed standard can be advanced to a draft standard
   and 4 months before a draft standard can be promoted to standard.

   It is general IAB practice that no proposed standard can be promoted
   to draft standard without at least two independent implementations
   (and the recommendation of the IESG).  Promotion from draft standard
   to standard generally requires operational experience and
   demonstrated interoperability of two or more implementations (and the
   recommendation of the IESG).

   In cases where there is uncertainty as to the proper decision
   concerning a protocol the IAB may convene a special review committee
   consisting of experts from the IETF, IRTF and the IAB with the
   purpose of recommending an explicit action to the IAB.

   Advancement of a protocol to proposed standard is an important step
   since it marks a protocol as a candidate for eventual standardization
   (it puts the protocol "on the standards track").  Advancement to
   draft standard is a major step which warns the community that, unless
   major objections are raised or flaws are discovered, the protocol is
   likely to be advanced to standard in six months.

   Some protocols have been superseded by better ones or are otherwise
   unused.  Such protocols are still documented in this memorandum with
   the designation "historic".

   Because the IAB believes it is useful to document the results of



Internet Architecture Board