[cesarb]

> As a result IETF standards are only proposed and that is as you say "the end of the road".

Not really, after PROPOSED STANDARD there's INTERNET STANDARD, the STD series. For instance, IPv4/ICMPv4 (RFC 791/792) is STD 5, UDP (RFC 768) is STD 6, TCP (RFC 793) is STD 7, DNS is STD 13, and so on (STD 1 has the full list).

However, an IETF standard only reaches that level after it's been in use for a while; according to RFC 2026 (BCP 9), "A specification for which significant implementation and successful operational experience has been obtained may be elevated to the Internet Standard level. An Internet Standard (which may simply be referred to as a Standard) is characterized by a high degree of technical maturity and by a generally held belief that the specified protocol or service provides significant benefit to the Internet community."

[tialaramex]

Good point, thanks for correcting that.