[rfc-i] Format for STDs, BCPs, FIYs

[SM]

Hi Phillip,
At 08:56 20-08-2012, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
>I know what RFC 822 Section 1 is, what is STD 42 Section 1? Is there

I don't recall that question coming up.

>even a canonical ordering of the individual drafts within an STD? Is
>this even possible when a STD revision might legitimately split one
>document into two or merge two into one.

STD 42 is at http://www.rfc-editor.org/std/std42.txt  There isn't any 
link to it.  I assume that it is an official publication but it is 
not that official as a RFC is.  A STD is a set of documents.  It does 
not split one document into two.  It doesn't merge two documents into 
one unless we go by the concatenation rule.

>At least part of the confusion here seems to stem from the (wrong)
>notion that there is only one output of the STD series on the Web
>site. The whole point of moving away from nroff processing is that the
>tools can produce multiple output streams as easily as one. So Martin
>can have his plaintext version RFC and the rest of us can read it in
>HTML and the lawyers can have PDF/A

I'll ignore the tools angle (nroff) to keep the discussion 
easier.  The above requires changes to the style guide.

>As far as the STD series goes, I would suggest a slight modification
>to current practice so that the STD items have a standards number and
>a standards version associated. That allows people to reference
>STD42-03 or STD-02 in the case that it makes a difference. Which it
>very often does because a contract or an RFP has to refer to a fixed
>document, not a movable feast.

 From a RFP point of view, you want to reference an exact 
version.  You can use STD42/RFC895.  This would have to be documented 
so that it can be official.

Regards,
-sm