On Mon, 9 Apr 2007, Bill Janssen wrote:
>> I strongly urge you to focus on standards, and disregard
>> non-standards.
> Ah, but identifying what's really a standard is the hard part. :-)
Actually, it is not difficult at all within the Internet context.
The IETF has a set of documents, called RFCs for historical reasons, which
are graded according to their standards level: informational,
experimental, proposed standard, draft standard, full standard. Documents
in one of the last three categories (with "standard" in their name) are
also called standards-track documents.
Anything that is not in a standards-track document is not a standard.
There are also Internet Drafts, some of which are destined to become
standards-track documents. However, Internet Drafts can (and do!) change
incompatibly before they are published as RFCs, so even if the effort
itself is aimed at standards-track an Internet Draft can not be used or
cited as anything other than a work in progress.
-- Mark --
http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.