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RE: XML2RFC submission (was Re: ASCII art)

2005-11-25 12:43:05
At 06:13 25/11/2005, Christian Huitema wrote:
XML2RFC submission would be based on an IETF standard, and I understand
that many will find that attractive. However, for me, this is
problematic.

An interesting part of the current text format is that it is defined in
a very simple way: so many lines, so many columns, that's about it.
Compare that to an XML grammar: we define lines and lines of rules,
attributes, sub attributes, and their expected meaning.

Guess what: we are engineers, and engineers like to tinker. Given that
tinkering with XML grammars is both very easy and very tempting, we can
be pretty sure that there will be many revisions. An XML format is going
to be much less stable than the current status!

As a preparation tool, XML2RFC is probably OK. But it cannot be as
stable and future proof as ASCII text as a "final product" format.

Full agreement with this. But are not addressed the two problems I rose:

1. the need of larger than 72 characters lines for some drafts.
2. the need to quote authoritative external non-ASCII drafts and texts.

IMHO this only calls for the possibility to quote external texts as authorititative. So the issue is not "everything that only way", but "this is the default way. When needed otherwise, here is how we proceed".

I note that when a BCP must quote an authoritative external document, it is because it applies to usages under that external document, and that the concerned users will be able to read it.

Another solution would be to maintain an RFC giving the list of the non-IETF documents, the IETF accepts as authoritative (this would no prevent an ASCII version for information).

jfc


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