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Re: About referenced documents...

2007-11-01 11:08:53
"Frank" == Frank Ellermann <nobody(_at_)xyzzy(_dot_)claranet(_dot_)de> 
writes:

Frank> IMO an author should reference what (s)he's actually read, 
Frank> guessing what an "official" (but commercial) document says
Frank> is risky.  

What should be our standard of proof for determining whether a
standards document that claims to be technically identical to another
standards document actually is identical?  This question has some
relevance to the work of the IETF, because some standards bodies
produce joint standards which become available under different terms:
one standards body will charge money for their copies of a joint
standard, while another standards body will make their copies of the
same standard available free of charge.

For example, a number of character-set related standards for which
ISO/IEC charges money are available for free from ECMA.  In the case
of IEEE 1003.1, the Open Group states that the Base Specifications of
the Single UNIX Specification Version 3, ISO/IEC 9945:2003, and IEEE
1003.1 are the same document:

    http://www.unix.org/version3/iso_std.html

I see no compelling reason to dispute this statement made by one of
the copyright holders.  I might be able to locate a PDF copy of IEEE
1003.1 to verify this claim.  (I doubt I would want to obtain the
physical bulk of a dead-tree version of the document.)

Is it wrong to note in a document's References section that a set of
standards are technically identical?  It will obviously increase the
size of references if an author does this.  If you also believe that
we should require authors to distinguish between the dead-tree version
of a standard and the online copy of the standard, References sections
could get really unwieldy.

---Tom

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