RFC 1410 (rfc1410) - Page 3 of 35
IAB Official Protocol Standards
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
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Some protocols have been superseded by better ones or are otherwise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