Keeping I-D's around forever is incredibly important form a historical,
technical, and legal perspective. They people understand how we work, think,
and develop protocols (history). They help people what was tried and did or did
not succeed (technology). And they provide a record of the state of the art at
a particular point in time (legal).
--
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On Sep 8, 2012, at 4:14 AM, Brian E Carpenter
<brian(_dot_)e(_dot_)carpenter(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:
Joe,
On 08/09/2012 04:58, Joe Touch wrote:
On Sep 7, 2012, at 7:36 PM, Barry Leiba <barryleiba(_at_)computer(_dot_)org>
wrote:
...
And I think those are very different things. The fact that expired drafts
used to not be available for public viewing on the IETF site does not, by
itself, mean that that was or is the intent of expiration.
That is exact what it meant. Or are you claiming that it was a coincidence
that this entire time that derafts were removed in sync with that expiry?
It may be what some people thought it meant, or wished it meant.
And yes, it was intentional that you wouldn't find them in the *active*
drafts directory after expiry.
The factual reality is that I-D's have always been more or less perpetual,
given that anonymous FTP has existed longer than any I-D. Admittedly the
record is spotty for drafts earlier that about 1995, when HTTP became a
major factor (but I suspect you could find them with gopher etc before HTTP).
The difference today is that we are sort-of admitting officially that
obsolete drafts can be found, and that this is useful.
The word "expired" is perhaps not ideal; "obsolete" or "out of date" would
perhaps be more precise, but it's probably too late to change it now.
Brian