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Re: An Internet Draft as reference material

2000-09-20 19:40:04
The point is that I-Ds aren't supposed to be formal documents either.
They're just electronic scribble on scap paper found lying around, and
generally intended to be discarded.   From time to time, some of that
looks to be worth keeping - and then it can be copied to a more permanent
archive, but we are still going to need the scratch pad.

there's even more to it than that.

as long as internet-drafts don't stay around forever, there's
less pressure on IETF to exercise editorial control over them.  
that means that there's a low overhead associated with 
getting I-Ds published and getting the ideas out for review.
(some claim that it's already too high )
 
but if/when they do get archived, IETF will sooner or later
be expected (to the point of having a legal obligation)
to exercise control over those documents.

Keith