On Tue, Sep 14, 2004 10:49:19AM -0400, Eric Rosen allegedly wrote:
I've never thought that the IETF was OBLIGATED to "hide" old
I-Ds; that seems a rather far-fetched interpretation of anything in
RFC 2026.
Also it's impossible.
In a perfect system, someone would go to the IETF's official I-D page,
enter a draft name, and get a prominent pointer to the most recent
version (even if it is now an RFC or a draft with a different
name), along with a less prominent pointer to the thing they actually
asked for.
In the current situation, with the IETF pretending that old versions are
not accessible, and with drafts apparently disappearing as they change
WG status or become RFCs, people have to work very hard to find out if a
particular draft is outdated. This is a major factor in their depending
on wrong information. So, instead of trying to suppress information,
which we can't, we should create and offer the meta-information people
need to avoid mistakes.
If that can't be done, it might be better to keep the expired
drafts "officially hidden". Not for the reasons being given
by our more academically inclined colleagues, but for the
practical reasons described above. Sure, the expired drafts might be
obtainable via Google, but getting something from Google is a bit
different than getting it via the IETF's official web page.
Suppose they could get them from some reliable source (e.g. IETF) and
also had extremely available meta-info?
swb
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