RFC 1130 (rfc1130) - Page 2 of 17
IAB official protocol standards
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 1130 IAB Standards October 1989
Given the important role of the Internet Engineering Task Force in
the evolution of the Internet Architecture, all proposed protocols
will be reviewed by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG)
which is composed of the Technical Area Directors.
The recommendation of the IESG and working group or research group is
given major consideration in the decision by the IAB to assign a
state and status to the protocol. The general policy is to gain
implementation experience with a protocol before considering a
possible designation as an official standard.
In cases where there is uncertainty as to the proper decision
concerning a protocol, the IAB may convene a special review committee
consisting of interested parties from the working group and members
of the IAB itself, with the purpose of recommending some explicit
action to the IAB.
A few protocols have achieved widespread implementation without the
approval of the IAB. For example, some vendor protocols have become
very important to the Internet community even though they have not
been proposed or reviewed by the IAB. However, the IAB strongly
recommends that the IAB standards process be used in the evolution of
the protocol suite to maximize interoperability (and to prevent
incompatible protocol requirements from arising). The IAB reserves
the use of the term "standard" in any RFC to only those protocols
which the IAB has approved.
2. The Standardization Process
Anyone can invent a protocol, document it, implement it, test it, and
so on. The IAB believes that it is very useful to document a
protocol at an early stage to promote suggestions from others
interested in the functionality the of protocol and from those
interested in protocol design. Once a protocol is implemented and
tested it is useful to report the results. The RFC document series
is the preferred place for publishing these protocol documents and
testing results.
The IAB encourages the documenting of every protocol developed in the
Internet (that is, the publication of the protocol specification as
an RFC), even if it is never intended that the protocol become an
Internet standard. A protocol that is not intended to become a
standard is called "experimental".
Protocols that are intended to become standards are first designated
as "proposed" protocols. It is expected that while in this state the
protocol will be implemented and tested by several groups. It is
likely that an improved version of the protocol will result from this
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