Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: IETF & XML-RPC

Author:Ken MacLeod
Posted:10/10/1999; 7:14:50 AM
Topic:IETF & XML-RPC
Msg #:11903 (In response to 11885)
Prev/Next:11901 / 11904

www.rfc-editor.org has a FAQ that, among other things, includes pointers to "Guidelines to Authors of Internet Drafts" and RFC 2223, "Instructions to RFC Authors".

In summary, an RFC is submitted by first submitting it as an Internet Draft (I-D). RFCs are pulled from the I-D area to create a numbered RFC. RFCs must follow a relatively strict formatting style and contain several required sections. Documents that are submitted as I-Ds solely for review (versions not intended to become RFCs or early versions of RFCs) are less strict on the content. Outside of requiring certain sections and some boilerplate text, RFCs may be very informal. Anyone may submit an "Informational" or "Experimental" I-D and have a fairly good expectation that it will be released as an RFC within a few rounds of editorial review. "Informational" RFCs are commonly used for publishing non-IETF standards as RFCs. Only I-Ds and RFCs that are intended to become IETF standards or best practices generally (must?) go through an IETF working group.

I am currently working on several I-Ds for LDO. While LDO has some specifications that overlap with XML-RPC (Method Calls and XML Serialization), there are also some that are intended to be reusable and could be shared between XML-RPC, LDO, and SOAP (messages over HTTP, over TCP, over ..., compression, encryption, authentication, addressing firewall and security issues, etc.).

Very specifically, I would like to see XML-RPC, LDO, and SOAP all use the same I-D/RFC for messages over HTTP. This would mean seperating HTTP out of the existing XML-RPC and SOAP specs. An immediate benefit to XML-RPC and SOAP would be that it would now be clear where and how someone could write a spec for XML-RPC or SOAP over TCP, email, or whatever (a common idea).



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