| Internet-Draft | Specification Required Sub-Policies | June 2026 |
| Nottingham | Expires 17 December 2026 | [Page] |
This document defines sub-policies that refine the Specification Required registry policy in RFC 8126.¶
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.¶
Status information for this document may be found at https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-nottingham-ianabis-spec-reqd/.¶
information can be found at https://mnot.github.io/I-D/.¶
Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at https://github.com/mnot/I-D/labels/spec-reqd.¶
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Section 4.6 of [I-D.ietf-ianabis-rfc8126bis] currently defines Specification Required as:¶
For the Specification Required policy, review and approval by a designated expert (see Section 5) is required, and the values and their meanings must be documented in a permanent and readily available public specification, in sufficient detail so that interoperability between independent implementations is possible. This policy is the same as Expert Review, with the additional requirement of a formal public specification. In addition to the normal review of such a request, the designated expert will review the public specification and evaluate whether it is sufficiently stable and permanent, and sufficiently clear and technically sound to allow interoperable implementations.¶
The intention behind "permanent and readily available" is that a document can reasonably be expected to be findable and retrievable long after IANA assignment of the requested value. Publication of an RFC is an ideal means of achieving this requirement, but Specification Required is intended to also cover the case of a document published outside of the RFC path, including informal documentation.¶
Section 4.6.1 of [I-D.ietf-ianabis-rfc8126bis] goes on to enumerate common issues encountered in use of Specification Required, including use of Internet-Drafts as the citation, purchase-only specifications, and citing non-IETF standards.¶
While this text offers improved clarity over the currently in-force guidance, it does not address specifications that are defined outside formal standards processes. In some registries, it is increasingly common for registration requests to come from Open Source projects, community groups and non-profits, and motivated individuals.¶
At the same time, "permanent and readily available" is now arguably achievable for even the most ephemeral resource, thanks to cheap perpetual Web hosting (e.g., on GitHub) and archiving services (such as archive.org).¶
Section 2 suggests sub-policies of the Specification Required policy, with the aim of clarifying these situations.¶
For a sub-policy to take effect, a given registry would need to opt into its use; note that there is no default, as existing registries may have already established relevant practices. Future revisions of this document might explore the mechanics of how a registry adopts a sub-policy (e.g., whether a revision of the registry specification is necessary, vs. an IESG or Expert declaration).¶
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
The "Standards" sub-policy of Specification Required adds a requirement that the cited specification(s) MUST be under the control of and published by an organization listed in the "IESG-Recognized Standards-Related Organizations" registry described in Section 3 of [I-D.ietf-ianabis-rfc7120bis].¶
This sub-policy explicitly precludes registrations using Internet-Drafts as the basis of a registration. However, IETF efforts are still eligible for early allocation, per [I-D.ietf-ianabis-rfc7120bis].¶
Likewise, specifications from recognized organizations do not qualify for registration until they have completed the relevant processes there. However, preliminary and in-progress specifications might qualify for early allocation, per [I-D.ietf-ianabis-rfc7120bis].¶
Organizations that appear in the "IESG-Recognized Standards-Related Organizations" registry are assumed to have met the "permanent and readily available" requirement for the purposes of this sub-policy, even if they charge for access to the specification. However, such organizations MUST provide a free copy to the Expert(s) for review.¶
The "Community" sub-policy of Specification Required adds a requirement that the cited specification(s) MUST either qualify under the Standards sub-policy (Section 2.1), or in the opinion of the Expert(s) be the product of a significant community effort.¶
The Expert(s) SHOULD take the following factors into consideration when determining whether a specification is the product of a significant community effort:¶
The specification is well-defined and complete¶
The specification is freely available at a stable location¶
The specification is not tied to or heavily associated with one implementation¶
The use case addressed by the specification is using the registry's extension point appropriately¶
The requested value is appropriate to the use case, and not so generic that it may be considered 'squatting'¶
There are multiple interoperable implementations of the specification, or such implementations are likely to emerge¶
There is evidence of broad adoption¶
There is no likely conflict with IETF work or known work at other recognized SDOs (present or future)¶
The Expert(s) have discretion in applying these criteria; in some cases, they might judge it best to register an entry that fails one or more. The intent is to assure that successfully deployed community efforts have registered code points. As such, the criteria above are designed to preclude anticipatory registrations.¶
In addition, the Expert(s) MAY define additional guidance and criteria for managing the name space of the registry (e.g., to avoid "squatting" on code points that are likely to be standardized).¶
Specifications whose registration is deemed to be the product of a significant community effort are not eligible for early allocation.¶
The "Permissive" sub-policy of Specification Required explicitly allows registration of any specification, regardless of who publishes it, that meets the "permanent and readily available" requirement set by Section 4.6 of [I-D.ietf-ianabis-rfc8126bis]. This includes but is not limited to:¶
Archived Internet-Drafts¶
GitHub repositories and similar data stores¶
Personal Web sites¶
Publicly available archive services¶
The Expert(s) MAY define additional guidance and criteria for managing the name space of the registry (e.g., to avoid "squatting" on code points that are likely to be standardized).¶
When this sub-policy is in effect, only registrations that qualify under the Standards sub-policy (Section 2.1) are eligible for early allocation.¶
This document has no direct tasks for IANA, but will need to be operationalised by them.¶
The security considerations of [I-D.ietf-ianabis-rfc8126bis] apply.¶