--On Tuesday, July 07, 2015 16:18 +0000 "Eggert, Lars"
<lars(_at_)netapp(_dot_)com> wrote:
Unless the IAOC and RFC Editor negotiated a particularly
unusual deal with the chosen DOI Registration Agency,
probably not. In general, signing up to issue DOIs carries
with it not only a set of charges but an obligation to use
DOIs in one's own documents.
As Eliot said, it seems to be a request, not an obligation.
The ACM and IEEE - both of which assign DOIs for all their
publications - are not turning down papers because the authors
didn't include DOIs in their bibliographies, and neither would
we.
We haven't seen the contract and this question is presumably
easily answered by someone with the information rather than
starting a long thread of speculation. In particular, even if
it were a firm obligation, all the above would prove is that ACM
and IEEE are not insisting that authors supply DOIs in
references that they can include in articles, something that
would, in turn, require that they not publish articles that
contain references to document for which no DOIs have been
assigned. The latter would be an unsustainable requirement and
an impossible one for non-digital documents and documents whose
publishers are no longer around. While third-party assignment
of bibliographic categories is feasible (and common), DOIs have
to be assigned by publishers or surrogates for them.
Given Dave Crocker's recent comments about I-Ds, Statements,
etc. (better examples than mine about possible additional
series, btw), it would also be good for someone who actually
knows to assure us that the contract is strictly limited to RFCs
or RFC Editor projects and cannot be used to expand the
obligation (or "request") to other IETF publications.
Let me say again what I think many others have said. There is
really no objection to including DOIs in RFCs on the basis
represented by recently-published ones. There is probably no
objection to including the DOI identifier in the header or a new
footer of newly-published RFCs at the discretion of the RFC
Editor (something I believe is covered by the obligation and/or
request and to make it easy to include them in references to an
RFC someone has in hand, even if retroactively-assigned ones
have to be looked up as metadata).
The objections are to:
* The review process that got us here, including the apparent
request to have the community review and endorse something that
has already been done and won't be un-done.
* A document that appears to make claims that are hard to
justify as completely accurate, most of all of which claims
could be eliminated by simply turning the document into a
factual statement as to what was (or is being) done whose
justification is limited to the obvious truth that some groups
in the community wanted this and no one saw evidence of harm.
As Dave says, the document may be trying to over-sell the need.
I would add that we really don't need to "sell" DOIs at all; if
more or less lavish claims about either utility or demand need
to be made, let's leave them to the DOI community and promoters.
john