On 07/09/2012 15:48, Joe Touch wrote:
On 9/5/2012 7:51 AM, SM wrote:
...
Creating a perpetual I-D archive for the sake of rfcdiff is not a good
idea as it goes against the notion of letting an I-D expire gracefully.
Speaking as a document reviewer for both Gen-ART and the Independent
Submission stream, and for that matter as a generic reviewer of various
WG documents, I consider the I-D archive to be an invaluable resource.
Looking back to see when a particular change was made can be quite
important.
Speaking as an author of I-Ds, I find the archive very useful when trying
to figure out if an idea is new, or tracking back from a WG mail archive
to an I-D that is discussed therein.
Basically, the archive noticeably enhances the way I work on IETF
documents.
Also, I think there is a definite benefit to having a *public* archive
of potential prior art. Anyway who suspects prior art exists in an old
I-D has the possibility of searching for confirmation. If there was no
public archive, only a subpoena would find the prior art.
+1
Let's not forget there was a reason for expiration.
Expired != invisible
Also, expiration, as a fact of experience, does not prevent I-Ds
being widely cited. I was quite embarassed at one point to discover
that draft-carpenter-metrics (expired 11/1996) was being cited as if
it had some authority, and I can assure you that its absence from any
public *.ietf.org directory did nothing to prevent the citations.
That's one example among hundreds, no doubt.
I'm OK with the archive being public so long as at least the authors can
remove an ID *without needing to provide a reason*.
Why? I-Ds are public speech. Generally, you can't erase public speech.
If I decide next week that this message was stupid, I can't erase
it from the mail archive. Why are I-Ds different?
Sometimes there might be valid reasons (like "I broke the copyright rules")
but I think you need to state a reason.
Yes, removal from the IETF site will not expunge copies from the entire
Internet, but the IETF site should set the example here, and respect the
original intent of allowing an ID to expire.
I think making it clear that the archive contains expired documents is
necessary, but expiry by obscurity isn't going to work.
Brian