Removing Expiration Notices from Internet-Drafts

Introduction The Content Guidelines for Internet Drafts requires that Internet-Drafts include an expiration statement. Tooling and IETF practice insist on Internet-Drafts including an expiry date 185 days after their posting. After this expiration date, some systems might display an Internet-Draft differently or not at all, with some exceptions, such as when the document is under IESG review. Expiration of drafts is believed to encourage authors to update drafts that they wish to discuss. Expired drafts are no longer served from the primary IETF servers. Copies of expired drafts are retained and can be obtained using other services. Expired drafts are routinely cited and referenced. Published RFCs routinely include informative references to drafts, which then usually expire. Many IANA registries refer to expired drafts.

Removing Internet-Draft Expiration Forced expiration serves no purpose that is not adequately served by the publication date on the document. The date of posting for an Internet-Draft is the best -- or perhaps only -- information available that can be added to a document the time of publication that might help readers understand whether the content is valid. Future events might invalidate the content virtually immediately; conversely, an Internet-Draft could also remain relevant for an arbitrarily long period of time. This document proposes that the "Expires:" field be removed from the header of submitted Internet-Drafts, and that the boilerplate be amended as follows: OLD:

Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

NEW:

Internet-Drafts are draft documents that may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite them other than as "work in progress."

Creating a revision to the Content Guidelines will be necessary to remove references to expiration. This document updates RFC 2026 to remove the second paragraph of Section and RFC 2418 to remove a single mention of expiration from Section . Other than these specific changes, both RFC 2026 and RFC 2418 refer to expiration of drafts. With this change, this is understood to apply to drafts that are marked as "dead" in tooling.

Replacement Procedures The expiration of a draft is intended to ensure that the topic is disqualified from consideration and discussion. At the same time, updating a draft indicates continued interest from the authors. Working group chairs might choose to concentrate efforts on drafts that have been recently updated. For instance, when setting an agenda for a session, chairs might give precedence to documents that have been updated since the preceding session. Expiration has also been used as a reminder to authors to update documents. A substitute for expiration reminders might be to provide a note in advance of planned sessions. For instance, for an upcoming session N+1, a reminder might be issued for drafts that have not been updated in the interval between session N and session N+1, but were updated between session N-1 and session N.

Security and Privacy Considerations This document has no direct implications on security or privacy.

IANA Considerations This document makes no request of IANA.