To some extent this thread has been ducking the question that lies behind it.
What is an author, in the IETF context? There's no short answer, so here's
a draft of a long answer. If people think it's useful, I can author an
I-D about it...
Scope
These guidelines are aimed at Internet-Drafts in the IETF publication stream.
They are intended to be compatible with the RFC Editor's style guide (RFC7322)
as well.
Authors
Authors are people who have made a substantial creative contribution to the
document.
Normally this means writing text or drawing diagrams. Occasionally, with the
consent
of the other authors, it means making some other substantial creative
contribution to
the document, for example by writing a software implementation as part of the
design
process.
People who did not make any such substantial contribution must not be listed
as authors. People must not be listed as authors without their explicit
permission.
The practical impact is that the authors will be listed as such on the front
page if
the document becomes an RFC.
Contributors
Contributors are people who made smaller creative contributions to the document
than the authors.
People who did not make any such contribution must not be listed as
contributors.
People must not be listed as contributors without their explicit permission.
The dividing line between contributors and authors is matter of judgement.
However,
the RFC Editor's policy is to query any document that has more than five listed
authors.
Editors
When a document has a large number of contributors and potential authors, it may
be appropriate to designate one or two people as "Editors" and list all the
others
as contributors. The practical impact of this is that the editors will be listed
as such on the front page if the document becomes an RFC.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements should be given to people who have made significant creative
contributions smaller than those from the authors and contributors, or to people
who have made useful comments, provided critical reviews, or otherwise
contributed
significantly to the development of the document. Acknowledgements may also be
given
to people or organizations that have given material support and assistance, but
this should not include the authors' regular employers.
An acknowledgement does not signify that the person acknowledged agrees with the
document. In general, people who do not wish to be listed as an author or a
contributor, but have in fact made a significant contribution, should be given
an acknowledgement.
Copyright
None of the above affects copyright. Copyright in IETF documents is governed
by BCP 78, the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions, and applicable national and
international law.
Regards
Brian
On 23/04/2015 14:55, John Levine wrote:
In article <20150423021027(_dot_)GL16567(_at_)mx2(_dot_)yitter(_dot_)info>
you write:
On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 01:58:27AM -0000, John Levine wrote:
Someone pointed out that the authors all get notices when a new draft
is posted. That seems good enough for the rare cases of false
attribution, so "never mind".
Except that the people included are thereby on the record as somehow
being an author of these things, and maybe they don't want to be. I
think that's a little worrisome.
I was assuming that aggrieved non-authors could then use out of band
means to ask that their unauthored drafts be unpublished. At least
this lets them know about funny business.
Sure, a sufficiently devious author could use fake addresses that he
controlled, but that seems a higher degree of evil than we need to
plan for. Should it happen, I'm sure we'll have the tools to swat the
violators.
R's,
John