Handling Normative References to Standards-Track Documents

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Publisher: IETF
Doc Type: Best Practice
Pages: 6
Abstract: The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and Request for Comments (RFC) Editor have a long-standing rule that a document at a given maturity level cannot be published until all of the documents that it references as normative are at that maturity level or higher. This rule has sometimes resulted in very long publication delays for documents and some claims that it was a major obstruction to advancing documents in maturity level. The IETF agreed on a way to bypass this rule with RFC 3967. This document describes a simpler procedure for downward references to Standards-Track and Best Current Practice (BCP) documents, namely "note and move on". The procedure in RFC 3967 still applies for downward references to other classes of documents. In both cases, annotations should be added to such References. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements.
Publication Date: 2007-06-01
Status Note: Best Current Practice
DOI: 10.17487/RFC4897
Link: https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC4897
Author(s): Dr. John C. Klensin
Sam Hartman

Latest version of IETF RFC 4897

Document Versions — IETF RFC 4897

▶ IETF RFC 4897 (2007-06-01)

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Normative Reference(s)

IETF RFC 2026 [Active*]
IETF RFC 3967 [Active*]

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IETF RFC 4897, Handling Normative References to Standards-Track Documents. Available at https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC4897

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IETF RFC 4897, Handling Normative References to Standards-Track Documents. Available at https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC4897

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IETF RFC 4897, Handling Normative References to Standards-Track Documents. Available at https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC4897

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<span class="citation"><cite>IETF RFC 4897</cite>, Handling Normative References to Standards-Track Documents. Available at <a href="https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC4897" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC4897</a></span>

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IETF RFC 4897, Handling Normative References to Standards-Track Documents
doi: 10.17487/RFC4897
url: https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC4897

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<cite id="bib-rfc4897">IETF RFC 4897</cite>, Handling Normative References to Standards-Track Documents
<span class="doi">10.17487/RFC4897</span>
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Referenced By

IETF RFC 4844 [Superseded*]