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Re: archives (was The other parts of the report....

2004-09-11 12:09:11
Hi Scott -

Thanks for pointing out the proceedings.  Having the i-d's published
there certainly demonstrates how futile it is to pretend that we
can erase history.  The position that Bill Manning and Joe Touch are
taking reminds of when I was ordered by the Secretary-General of
the ITU to erase all Internet copies of their standards.

I was a little puzzled by the strong reaction of both Bill Manning
and Joe Touch.  They seem to be bringing up two points:

1. Bill has pointed out that some I-D's are *not* offered in
accordance with section 10 of rfc2026 and thus, as I understand
his reasoning, he only granted a 6-month license to publish.

2. Joe seems to take a stronger position, which is all I-D's are
(or have been) granted only a 6-month license to publish.

I went back and reviewed the RFC's (many of which you wrote),
and they are extremely unclear on the subject.  In fact, 2026
makes it clear that all the I-D's will be archived.  Earlier
docs don't touch on the subject.  And, the preamble appended
to every draft is pretty unclear.

What is clear is that an I-D is "valid" for only six months.
As I understand that term it means "on the table for consideration
by the IESG or others as a possible standard."

With all due respect, it seems to me that there is no prior
policy on this subject and the texts are very much subject to
differing interpretations.  I believe both Bill and Joe are taking
very extreme positions on the subject and I'm not sure their views
reflect anything resembling a prior policy, or even a universal
understanding.  It seems like a very legalistic interpretation
of a very vague policy, and (imho) that policy goes against
core values like openess, and transparency.

In any case, it does sound like decomposing the problem into two
pieces makes sense:

1. make a clear going-forward "keep all drafts in an archive" policy
2. figure out if there might be a community consensus to decide
   what the prior policy was, perhaps using a mechanism such as
   opt-out if there is a vocal but very small minority who disagrees.

Regards,

Carl


Something was pointed out to me in private mail that I should have 
remembered but did not.

Since Aug 1998 the IETF proceedings have included the then-current 
Internet drafts (except for one meeting which seems to be missing).

As I recall, this was started when the secretariat started offering CDs 
of the proceedings and there was extra space on the CDs. It was 
decided to include the IDs since the space was there to do so. 
(My memory is that Steve Coya suggested this to the IESG and the 
IESG thought it was a good idea.)

Anyway - that means that most IDs since mid 1998 are already posted on
the IETF web site, they are just not posted in an easy to use way.

see

http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/98aug/I-D/
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/98dec/I-D/ 
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/99mar/I-D/ 
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/99jul/I-D/
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/99nov/I-D/
00mar - missing
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/00jul/I-D/
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/00dec/I-D/
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/01mar/I-D/
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/01aug/I-D/
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/01dec/I-D/
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/02mar/I-D/
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/02nov/I-D/
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/03mar/I-D/
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/03jul/I-D/
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/03nov/I-D/
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/04mar/I-D/

Scott

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