ietf
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: An Internet Draft as reference material

2000-09-20 15:30:04
At 08:49 AM 9/21/00 +1100, Robert Elz wrote:
 | You seem to ignore the possibility that they could be worth keeping in a
 | form other than RFCs.

Why?   Or perhaps I mean, why in another form than RFCs which are RFC clones
in essentially all details (that is, I wasn't asking why someone might prefer
to also keep docs in some radically different form or medium).

I think it's reasonably clear that there are legitimate referencing and
historical needs which make preserving I-Ds as I-Ds a useful idea.

 | I don't think the world wants the RFC pool to grow
 | _that_ rapidly,

You're worried about conserving RFC numbers?   Why?   If the information is
to be kept, let it be kept.

I think the status of RFCs as somewhat 'approved' and the need for people
to be able to search against that list suggests that a separate archive for
drafts might be a good idea.  

If you'd rather reach RFC 10000 in the next couple of years, we can, of
course, do that!  I think the meaning of RFC publication would get diluted
quickly, but that might be fine as well.

If we start keeping I-D's forever (publically available) then we will just
need to invent another doc series for draft drafts, that aren't to be
kept forever.

'Another doc series'?  Don't I-Ds already exist as a de facto doc series?
Only thing is, no one keeps them around.

To be honest, I'm not concerned who maintains the archive.  If it proves to
be a friendly third party, that's good with me.

Perhaps the current problems are all a result of the (comparatively recent)
difficulty of getting stuff actually published as an RFC, compared to the
ease of I-D publication.  If that is the real issue, then that might be
worth discussing, but just creating more archival doc series doesn't solve
anything at all.

That's not my issue - I just need to be able to reference materials in all
phases of development, without those references expiring constantly.

Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books