5. Best Current Practice (BCP) RFCs
The BCP subseries of the RFC series is designed to be a way to standardize practices and the results of community deliberations. A BCP document is subject to the same basic set of procedures as standards track documents and thus is a vehicle by which the IETF community can define and ratify the community's best current thinking on a statement of principle or on what is believed to be the best way to perform some operations or IETF process function.
Historically Internet standards have generally been concerned with the technical specifications for hardware and software required for computer communication across interconnected networks. However, since the Internet itself is composed of networks operated by a great variety of organizations, with diverse goals and rules, good user service requires that the operators and administrators of the Internet follow some common guidelines for policies and operations. While these guidelines are generally different in scope and style from protocol standards, their establishment needs a similar process for consensus building.
While it is recognized that entities such as the IAB and IESG are composed of individuals who may participate, as individuals, in the technical work of the IETF, it is also recognized that the entities themselves have an existence as leaders in the community. As leaders in the Internet technical community, these entities should have an outlet to propose ideas to stimulate work in a particular area, to raise the community's sensitivity to a certain issue, to make a statement of architectural principle, or to communicate their thoughts on other matters. The BCP subseries creates a smoothly structured way for these management entities to insert proposals into the consensus-building machinery of the IETF while gauging the community's view of that issue.
Finally, the BCP series may be used to document the operation of the IETF itself. For example, this document defines the IETF Standards Process and is published as a BCP.
5.1 BCP Review Process
The current list of BCPs may be found in the IETF Working group Web page (````http://www.ietf.org/\````).
A BCP must be approved by the IESG before it is published as a BCP RFC. IESG approval is obtained through the normal IESG approval process as defined in section 6.1.2. The IESG may choose to publish a document as a BCP RFC if it believes that it clearly articulates and documents a standardized process or some other aspect of IETF operations.
The IESG may reject a candidate BCP RFC if it believes that the candidate RFC does not clearly articulate and document a standardized process or some other aspect of IETF operations. A document which has been rejected by the IESG as a BCP RFC may still be published as an Informational RFC if it still meets the criteria for an Informational RFC.
A number of existing RFCs have been designated as BCPs and placed in the BCP subseries of the RFC series. Such designation will only be made with the approval of the RFC author(s) and the IESG.
The procedures defined in section 6.3 apply to the process of revising a BCP RFC.
The procedures defined in section 6.4 apply to the process of retiring a BCP RFC.