Joel Halpern's comments (below) are right on target. However, Joel is
rather too polite.
First, I must request that the Internet Draft be retracted in its present
form. Section 4
contains a direct quote from one of my messages. However, the quoted
sentence was taken
brazenly out of context; its sense is quite the opposite of the sense of my
original
message. This is intolerable. That kind of behavior may get you elected in
the US ;-)
but it does not belong in the IETF.
Now, on to the substance. As the author notes, there was indeed a replay
of the usual
discussion about RFC formats in winter 2006. The author says, "... the
quite thoughtful,
extended, and detailed discussion ... resulted in no change". There is a
reason it did
not result in change... there were cogent arguments against all proposals
that were
made. So, when it has no good ideas, the IETF randomly picks one of the bad
ones?
That is apparently happening here.
How DID it get last called, by the way? If I write up a arbitrary process
experiment,
will the IESG automatically last call it? Yummy.
The experiment picks on two working groups and specifies that for one year
it will
treat the results of these working groups differently from all other
working group
output. How will a future implementor know which version is normative? At
present,
there is a simple rule... it is always the ASCII version. If this exercise
goes
ahead, some PDF files (which ones?) will be normative, and some ASCII
files won't. This seems like a little hint that "process experiment" is not
a useful procedure for changing the fundamentals of standards publication
by the IETF.
Besides the misquote of myself, the I-D has some misleading examples of
bad ASCII art. You cannot honestly prove that ASCII art is unusable
by abusing it. I spent a few minutes cleaning up the terrible example
in the I-D (Sorry, I am in Washington and don't have ready access to
it; I will forward it when I get back.)
As Joel mentions, this experiment will have a negative impact on
RFC Editor throughput. Shouldn't the IAB and perhaps the IAD
have some part in this?
For all the reasons that Joel said, plus the reasons I have given, I
request that the IESG reject this last call. At the very least, the
base document needs more work, and the implications need
more mature thought. And it seems to there is a badly broken
process lurking here.
I am somewhat astonished that the IESG chose to last call
'this document.
Bob Braden
At 03:15 PM 6/14/2006 -0400, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
I am personally skeptical about the value of the this experiment.
I am concerned about the long term viability of this particular
format. (I saw a recent note about a postscript document that supposedly
used only core features of postscript, but still could not be printed on a
modern printer.)
I am also concerned that the document does not specify versions and
features. I understand that people may have trouble knowing what versions
and features of PDF they are using, it is important to remember that PDF
is an active format, and I have seen reports that suitably arranged PDF
can carry content which causes harm.
Another concern is that this increases the work on the RFC Editor. After
performing the editing, and receiving the normative PDF, the RFC Editor
must carefully determine if it actually matches the agreed text
changes. (Let us assume the author was trying in good faith to do
so. Mistakes still get made.) When the PDF was secondary to the text,
this was not as large a concern.
Finally, this experiment will produce a set of RFCs which live forever
with the limitation that those RFCs do not have normative ASCII. What if
we decide that this is a bad idea? How do we fix it?
Yours,
Joel M. Halpern
At 10:56 AM 6/14/2006, The IESG wrote:
The IESG has received a request from an individual submitter to consider the
following document:
- 'Proposed Experiment: Normative Format in Addition to ASCII Text '
<draft-ash-alt-formats-02.txt> as an Experimental RFC
The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
final comments on this action. Please send any comments to the
iesg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org or ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org mailing lists by
2006-07-12.
The file can be obtained via
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ash-alt-formats-02.txt
_______________________________________________
IETF-Announce mailing list
IETF-Announce(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-announce
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf