Hi, Dave
This is definitely doable, although I’d prefer that /latest redirect to the
latest rather than display it.
I question how useful it is. The obsoletes/obsoletedBy relationship is
semantically overloaded. Consider the header of RFC 4306:
Obsoleted by: 5996
Updated by: 5282
Request for Comments: 4306
Obsoletes: 2407, 2408, 2409
RFC 5996 defines IKEv2, same as RFC 4306, but the three RFCs that 4306
obsoletes define the protocol IKEv1, a different protocol.
So what should https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2407/latest
<https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2407/latest> return? 2407, because that is the
latest RFC defining IKEv1, or 5996 (actually, 7296) because it’s the latest IKE?
The 822 —> 2822 —> 5322 path is one we should follow. I’m not sure the same
applies to different versions of a protocol.
Yoav
On 29 Mar 2017, at 6:51, Dave Crocker <dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net> wrote:
G'day.
The RFC labeling model is to assign a unique serial number to a static
document. A new version of a spec gets a new serial number. This basic model
has the benefit of both simplicity and predictability.
To this we've added an overlay model, using Obsoletes/ObsoletedBy. This makes
it dramatically easier to see that something has been obsoleted and to find
its replacement.
However the seeing and the finding are an essentially manual process. One
must go to the online older document, then notice the Obsoleted By tag and
then click to follow it.
Sometimes it would be helpful for the requester to be able to say 'give me
the latest' more easily.
So I'm wondering whether the IETF should consider adding a citation feature
for this.
Something like:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc822/latest
would display the contents of:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322
by having the fetching system automatically traversing the Obsoleted By links
in RFC 822 and then RFC 2822.
Some sort of display banner would flag this, to help the user see that they
are getting a different version than they cited.
Thoughts?
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
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