[ietf-provreg] group status

[Edward Lewis <edlewis@arin.net>]

Where is the group?
===================

We are not planning to have a meeting in Vienna.

We have 1 RFC done already, 5 in the RFC editor's queue, and our 
other document is in "Publication Requested" state.  The latter is on 
the agenda of the next IESG meeting.

We have completed all our milestones, all we are waiting for now is 
to see the last document become published as an RFC.

Unless someone has any bright ideas.

Where will that leave us?
=========================

EPP will be a proposed standard protocol, with one supporting 
document describing the process of extending it.

RFC 2026 says this about proposed standards:

    A Proposed Standard specification is generally stable, has resolved
    known design choices, is believed to be well-understood, has received
    significant community review, and appears to enjoy enough community
    interest to be considered valuable.  However, further experience
    might result in a change or even retraction of the specification
    before it advances.

and

    Implementors should treat Proposed Standards as immature
    specifications.  It is desirable to implement them in order to gain
    experience and to validate, test, and clarify the specification.
    However, since the content of Proposed Standards may be changed if
    problems are found or better solutions are identified, deploying
    implementations of such standards into a disruption-sensitive
    environment is not recommended.

What this means is that even if the WG folds it's tent at this point, 
there is still work to do (in the eyes of the IETF machinery), which 
is to get to the next level (Draft Standard).  It is up to the 
interested community to keep this going, just as it has gotten us to 
the level we are approaching now.  When the time comes and the desire 
is there, a new WG would be needed to review the Draft Standard 
version of the documents.  That WG will be formed much in the same 
way this WG was formed in 2000/2001.

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Edward Lewis                                            +1-703-227-9854
ARIN Research Engineer

Okay, okay, the previous sig wasn't all that good...