On Jul 3, 2009, at 8:07 AM, Doug Ewell wrote:
As always when this discussion occurs, there are at least three
different issues swirling around:
1. ASCII-only vs. UTF-8
2. Plain text vs. higher-level formatting, for text flow and
readability
3. Whether it is a good idea to include high-quality pictures in RFCs
There are not the same issue, and it would help combatants on both
sides not to mix them up.
I don't know where the argument "don't help authors prepare I-Ds
using the tools of their choice, unless they are open-source" fits
into this picture.
Perhaps some of these difficulties can be remedied by allowing use of
RFC 2223 with perhaps extensions by RFC 2346. What is missing are
likely automation tools able to accept this original publication
practice. This approach allowing postscript, html, and pdf output has
not kept pace with the automation provided by the combination of TCL
code and XML formats detailed in RFC 2629. If there is interest to
revisit the use of roff and standardize preprocessors similar to that
of xml2rfc, it should not take much effort to include these techniques
as a means to extend what can be included within an ID and RFC. For
this not to create too many problems, RFC 2223 should be updated.
Reliance upon open source tools ensures the original RFCs and ID can
be maintained by others, without confronting unresolvable
compatibility issues. It would also be a bad practice to rely upon
unstable proprietary formats having limited OS support and significant
security issues.
-Doug
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