From: "Rosen, Brian" <Brian(_dot_)Rosen(_at_)Marconi(_dot_)com>
Are you suggesting that we would need a new working group
to allow 2629 conformant xml to be optionally submitted with
text to the I-D archive?
Need?--I don't know.
Would inevitably have?--certainly.
Why?
It's in the modern Tao of the IETF.
I'm not proposing any new RFC. Guidelines to authors is not
an RFC. 2629 is an RFC.
Actually, the last time I looked RFC 22223 is an RFC.
There is also an I-D in the pipeline to update the classic
"Instructions to RFC Authors" series.
The xml2rfc tool, which is not the only tool around, but it's
a good one, puts a 70 line style header in front of the text,
but then has almost no other "bloat" that I can see. Is that
too much?
I don't think there is any "cruft" at all in the xml described
in RFC2629.
Now, to the charge that this is feeping creaturism, we must
admit guilt. I think there is some value in this proposal.
Many seem to agree.
I don't like the idea of XML, postscript, or any other standard
de jure mark-up language for standards documents, but that's not my point.
The nature of modern IETF is such that those who are most enthused
about XML will inevitably include many who see no other opportunity
for personally Contributing To The Standards Process and perhaps
getting their names into the RFC Index. They will not tolerate
letting Marshall Rose alone decide what XLM features can be allowed
via RFC 2629. They will point out that RFC 2629 is more than four
years old and demand that it be updated to address the latest
microstupid standard. They'll also point out that "Informational"
is a weak category for something so important to the IETF. Once
the camel's nose of updating RFC 2629 is in the tent, we'll have
a 3 year (if we're lucky) process that will produce something that
will make Microsoft's XML mail cruft look tiny, simple, and elegant.
To put my point another way, if you allow XML, you will end up
requiring the RFC Editor to accept the output of every mark-up
tool that exists or will ever exist, regardless of the
restrictinos imposed by RFC 2629. Please think what that really
means. You might as well forget ASCII and declare that all future
I-Ds and RFCs must be written the then current MS Word format.
Vernon Schryver vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com