Subject: Working documents repository

From: "Casati, Alessio (Alessio)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 10:06:58 +0100

It happens quite often that working documents
like the one  this folk is looking for get
forgotten simply because the standard process
works this way.

Still, there may be some interest (at least 
for historians:) to preserve documents that
otherwise would disappear.

Sometimes good ideas disappear with them.

Is it possible the IETF will keep a repository
of expired working documents? or is it a non
affordable cost?

I just note that in order to prevent the loss
of the "Two bits differentiated services architecture"
the authors submitted it as a non std track RFC.

Alessio

PS  there was an article about working documents
getting lost on an issue of IEEE Networks, 
and I share the concerns of its author.

> ----------
> From: 	G. Ensuque[SMTP:[email-masked]]
> Reply To: 	[email-masked]
> Sent: 	16 August 1999 09:46
> To: 	[email-masked]
> Subject: 	[MOBILE-IP] Wanted: old hierarchical FA draft
> 
> Hi all again
> 
> I would be extremely grateful if someone could send me the now expired
> draft
> by Charlie Perkins on Hierarchical Foreign Agents
> (draft-ietf-mobileip-hierfa-00) as I cannot
> 
> Thanks in advance
> 
> Guilhem Ensuque
> 
> Mobility Futures Unit                           [email-masked]
> B55-131B
> BT Advanced Communications Technology Centre
> Adastral Park, Martlesham Heath
> IPSWICH IP5 3RE                              Tel: +44 1473 645 232
> UK                                                   Fax: +44 1473 646 885
>

---

From: "R. Lizardo" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 17:53:51 +0800

How about online library to keep these expired drafts. At least they are the
perfect place to keep archives. And a link from ietf to these archives.

Ranil Lizardo
ISSD- Applications Development, Telephony
Piltel
========================
     "Who hacks the hacker?"
========================
Get your free e-mail: http://ranil.zzn.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Casati, Alessio (Alessio) <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]' <[email-masked]>
Date: Monday, August 16, 1999 5:30 PM
Subject: Working documents repository

>> UK                                                   Fax: +44 1473 646
885

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 05:45:24 -0500

I'm not quite sure how this might work.

I'm thinking that the percentage of internet drafts that should live on is
pretty small. I'm not questioning that some internet drafts should live on,
I'm just not sure how to identify the ones that should.

The question should include the possibility of specific versions of internet
drafts living on. I remember Jonathan Rosenberg's Wide Area SLP draft
version 00 as an amazingly visionary document that got chopped down in
version 01 to something (that might have been) more manageable. The version
to keep was 00, not 01 or a later version.

I would love to NOT keep every editorial version of every internet draft
around (substituting too much institutional memory for, maybe, too little).

Is requesting publication as an informational RFC the wrong thing to do?
publication as a historical RFC? (which is probably the intent, anyway?)
These possibilities would allow a conscious decision that "this internet
draft needs to be checkpointed and preserved", and I think this decision
needs to be made explicitly.

(signed) curious

Also - I'm not saying that my experience is universally applicable, but in
the areas I've worked in, I see a lot of "person X suggested this in 1987"
comments, so I'm not sure that the internet community's institutional memory
is all THAT short.

> From:	Casati, Alessio (Alessio) [SMTP:[email-masked]]
> Sent:	Monday, August 16, 1999 4:07 AM
> To:	[email-masked]'
> -
> This message was passed through [email-masked], which
> is a sublist of [email-masked]. Not all messages are passed.
> Decisions on what to pass are made solely by Harald Alvestrand.

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 05:45:24 -0500

(signed) curious

---

From: "Casati, Alessio (Alessio)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 17:32:15 +0100

> ----------
> From: 	[email-masked][SMTP:[email-masked]]
> 
> 
>   *> 
>   *> Is it possible the IETF will keep a repository
>   *> of expired working documents? or is it a non
>   *> affordable cost?
>   *> 
>   *> 
> 
> Alessio,
> 
> If you start an (official) repository for expired Internet Drafts, they
> aren't expired any more (!), 
> 
Bob,

It's not important the repository is kept by the IETF,
but the IETF may keep a pointer to it for those folks
interested in history (or actually understanding a paper 
they are reading), possibly with an advice on the 
nature of that site.

As far as the argument this would create confusion is
concerned, I don't think a guy walking in a old 
weapons museum believes to be visiting an arsenal
the army would use:)

alessio

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 15:34:53 -0500

I'm probably looking foolishly for too much consistency, but a recent thread
on this mailing list has been the difficulty of bringing new IETFers up to
speed, and what might be done about it (for example, see Charlie Perkins and
following posts on
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/ietf/Current/msg05005.html, "Generating
understanding about working group activities").

Preserving every version of every I-D, and the mailing list history, and
saying "figure it out", seems to say that the practice we use for catching
up with current work is so good that we should expand its scope to include
archeology!

If we have the opportunity to review an I-D and say "it's interesting, it's
impractical at this time for these reasons, it should be preserved as a
basis for future work" - this sounds like an OK thing. Publishing such an
I-D as an Informational RFC would provide an opportunity for this review. Is
this wrong?

Preserving every BAD idea the IETF has ever produced, with no
meta-information that says (for instance) "this protocol won't scale to the
Internet because it uses broadcast to reach all participants", sounds like a
less-than-OK thing.

I note that the best suggestions seem to require clueful editors to write
clueful summaries. Some of this is happening. Automatically keeping expired
I-Ds around would be easier, but in most cases would be just adding trees to
the forest.

Spencer

---

From: "Casati, Alessio (Alessio)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 23:04:40 +0100

> ----------
> From: 	Spencer Dawkins[SMTP:[email-masked]]
> 
Well, 

who will organize a Nomcom to nominate such "clueful editors" :)

... whatever people will decide to do, it is better
to keep some good folks from the ridiculous effort to defend
future generations from the garbage that comes inevitably
with any human activity.

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 15:34:53 -0500

Spencer

---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 14:27:03 -0600 (MDT)

> From: Peter Deutsch <[email-masked]>

> ...
> The question then becomes "does it do more harm to preserve this
> material than to let it go away?" Personally, I'd hum for
> preservation...

Surely the issue is not preservation vs. destruction, but publication vs.
not publishing.  Just as with the mailinglists' archives, it would be
foolish to discard stuff that might figure in court cases when the IETF
would be destroying only the complete, authoritative records and not
incomplete, potentially improved, private copies.

Old I-D's could be available to individual historians and lawyers for
limited times (e.g. 6 weeks) and after application to the IESG for a
username and password.  That would keep J. Random Marketoon from claiming
compliance with an I-D, and not mentioning that it is #3 in the archive
on venera instead of the #97 in the active directory.

In any case, contrary to one suggestion today, for all of the reasons
that make it necessary to 'expire' I-D's, the IETF "MUST NOT" refer to
other organizations' repositories of expired I-D's.  Publishing the
location of other repositories would make the IETF's expirations moot.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 21:45:28 -0500

As Vernon says, this thread is becoming excessively black-and-white (and my
apologies for contributing paint of one color to the previous discussion).
Let me try again.

The point of departure, as I understood it, was that two specific I-Ds -
and, I hope, one specific version of each - were (1) thought to be useful,
and (2) expiring. One has not been published as an informational RFC, the
other has been requested to be published as informational RFC 2638.

RFC 2638 says, in its abstract, that it is two years old, is being submitted
as background information for RFCs 2474 and 2475, and (paraphrasing
slightly) there may still be some useful ideas in the section on forwarding.

I don't see why this is wrong. If the IETF published it as Historical, that
would make even more sense to me, but saying "if you think the idea is any
good, request a Last Call for publication as an informational RFC" seems
reasonable. It provides archival for ideas that someone thought were
valuable, that weren't being pursued on the standards track, and captures
comments about the ideas so they can be evaluated within a context.

How many additional informational RFCs per year would be published this way?
50?

If the other alternatives are (1) archive all versions of all I-Ds, and (2)
seek and destroy all expired I-Ds, I think we're doing just fine.

As a specific example (that I contributed text to), the TCPSAT research
issues I-D has now gone through 10 versions, and has been quite stable for
about five versions. Any reason to keep them all? I'm hoping not!

We still haven't addressed the expired I-D that people keep thinking might
be useful, and which the authors haven't submitted to be published (for lots
of reasonable reasons, like "lack of time"). Is it wrong to request a last
call on an I-D with the intention of collecting comments about an approach
that isn't being pursued as a standards-track specification at this time? If
the I-D grants full copyright to the IETF (actually, to ISOC, but you know
what I mean), can't anyone respond to last call comments and come up with a
version that can be published as an informational RFC? (giving full credit
to the I-D authors, etc., of course).

(signed) curious

> From:	Vernon Schryver [SMTP:[email-masked]]
> Sent:	Monday, August 16, 1999 6:51 PM
> To:	[email-masked]
> Subject:	Re: Working documents repository
> 
> > From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
> 
> > > I did not mean to imply that the IESG would check any credentials.
> The
> > > idea was to make the old I-D's available to anyone who really wanted
> to
> > > see them, but without publishing them,
> >
> > You know, I rather think I see a logical contradiction here.
> 
> There is no contradiction between the notion of documents that can be
> obtained with some hassle, and other documents that are published.  It is
> impossible to make expired I-D's unavailable, but that does not mean
> they must be published forever.
> 
> There is no more contradiction between the archives that major newspapers
> maintain, and the fact that the contents of those archives are not
> published.  It would be harmful for newspapers to continue to publish
> everything forever (not least to for-profit newspapers themselves).
> Still,
> everyone agrees that limited access to newspaper archives is valuable.
> 
> The IETF is no more or less than a volunteer, non-profit publisher, a
> "newspaper" of standards.
> 
> It was suggested that some expired I-D's have value to a few people, and
> that no one can predict which I-D's or which people.  Everyone agrees with
> that.  It is also generally agreed by people who have been around the IETF
> for a while that continuing to publish all expired I-D's forever would
> cause between a little and a lot of harm.  The only issue is whether and
> how the value of helping those few people find their valued expired I-D's
> can or should be balanced against the harm, and how great is the harm.
> 
> 
> > > It would not matter if you required every reader of every I-D to
> repeat
> > > such a disclaimer in their own words before giving them the rest of
> the
> > > text.  It would still have no effect in the real world, and few
> significant
> > > effects in unreal worlds such as the trade rags and courts.
> >
> > You have no objection to the disclaimer proposal, then, and you admit
> > to the marginal benefit of the proposal.
> 
> I see no marginal benefit in your suggested boilerplate, but I do see
> minor harm from the inevitable bureaucratic friction that would come with
> an ineffectual change to text no one reads.  I am not competent to predict
> the nature of the effects (if any) of your boilerplate in the unreal
> worlds
> of the courts and trade rags, and I don't think you are either.
> 
> It seems you want to twist my words into an absolute position for or
> against publishing I-D's forever (I can't tell which), and then use the
> silliness of that absolute position (whichever it is) to support a change
> in boilerplate.  Please don't.
> 
>

---

From: "Nyk Cowham" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 13:02:17 -0400

Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]> 08/16/99 06:24PM >>>

>IMO forcibly beginning every RFC (and not just standards-track 'see
>STD1' ones) with a boilerplate indicating it might be
>obsoleted/updated and to see the index/summaries would IMO be a good
>idea, since it helps prevents RFCs being read out of context. We
>already put this on drafts with good reason:
>
>    Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six
>    months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other >documents
>    at any time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts as
>    reference material or to cite them other than as "work in
>   progress."
>
>We need to stamp something like:
>
>   This RFC document may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by later
>    RFC documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this
>    RFC document as a reference without citing its status as
>    {Informational|Best Current Practice|whatever} and checking
>    the current rfc-index for this RFC's current status.

Actually this sounds like a good idea - in fact, if I-D's can only be
expected to be valid for less than 9 months then perhaps on publication
they should have an expiry date stamp added, expiring the document 6
months after publication.  Then when the document expires it is either replaced by an RFC or automatically reclassified as an Historic Document.

>Yes, it's blatantly obvious - to you. In a world where unpublished
>material is widely available, clarity of implicit context is
>increasingly important, and explicitly distinguishing the class and
>validity of an RFC can't hurt.

Indeed, the notion of context is very important, and having clear boundaries of classification can help considerably in clarifying context.

Nyk Cowham.

---

From: Super-User <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 07:35:24 -0500 (CDT)

>perfect place to keep archives. And a link from ietf to these archives.

I suppose my site could technically qualify for this, although it only goes back 
to 1 Jun 1999.  Its primary purpose was just to organize incoming drafts for 
easier review, but it is, de facto, an archival site, as well.

http://rgfsparc.cr.usgs.gov:8090/sysadmin/int_rpt.html

RGF

Robert G. Ferrell
Internet Technologist
National Business Center, US DoI
[email-masked]
**********************************
**** I hack, therefore I am ******
**********************************

---

From: "Casati, Alessio (Alessio)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 19:38:40 +0100

John,

You make very good points, but it happens
to a lot of the people engaged in fora such as this one
not to have time to devote to moving their expired
good ideas to a non std track RFC. 
It just happens that they may be in a rush to get
their product shipped, or in a rush for other
reasons. 

Also, there may be different reasons why a proposal may 
not be accepted, and not all of them may be documented in
a critical summary in a RFC :).

	[ snip  ]

>   -- Encouraging those who think that there are good ideas in
> about-to-expire I-Ds to move their significant content toward
> Informational RFC publication, with critical summaries of why
> the ideas didn't move forward as part of those RFCs.  I believe
> the IESG and RFC Editor should be much more welcoming of
> would-be Informational docs that contain careful critical
> analyses than of those that adopt an "we had this neat idea,
> look at us, aren't we clever" approach (I believe that, in fact,
> that preference has usually been applied correctly in the past).
> 
> Let's not bury ourselves in easy to use,
> potentially-destructive, archives just because we can.  The S/N
> ratio around here is bad enough already.
> 
> 
> 
Alessio

---

From: "Casati, Alessio (Alessio)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 20:44:10 +0100

This is the last, I promise :)

> I accept that.  In many cases, reasons like "get the product
> shipped and never get around to coming back and finishing the
> doc" represents a decision that the idea really wasn't
> important.  
> 
However it's my opinion that this decision 
should not limit other individuals in deciding 
that reading what was written in an ID 5 or 10 
years ago is worthwhile.

> As I-D authors, they ought to be able to make that
> decision. 
>  I've let a lot of things I thought were good ideas
> slip into obscurity over the years, and regret some of it.  But
> one makes decisions about these things and lives with them and
> I'm not certain that having others decide that everything I do
> gets archived in a readily-accessible way -- and hence, that I'd
> better prepare every writing to publication/archival quality--
> helps me, the world, or the IETF.
> 
I understand that somebody may bear some 
repentance on what what she/he wrote in 
some ID. But so what? Probably knowing 
that one ID is going to be recorded as 
a "life-time prosecutor" (sounds really 
threatening!) may rate-limit bad ideas 
submissions.In this sense archiving working
documents may help the IETF;).

Anyway, it appears we have some volunteers
providing the repository, so this is becoming
a non issue.

Alessio

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 22:35:18 -0400

IETF exercises very little editorial control over the Internet-Drafts
series.  In general, if it is in more-or-less the correct format, and 
has the right boilerplate, it is put in the Internet-Drafts repository
regardless of content.  This may have the effect (in some areas)
of limiting IETF's liability should someone attempt, for instance, to 
use the Internet-Draft mechanism to dissemenate illegal material,
copyrighted material, or trade secrets without authorization.   Since 
we didn't exercise editorial control, we're arguably not (as) 
responsible for its content.  

OTOH if we were to make Internet-Drafts permanent documents, we would 
be providing a publishing service not only for any hairbrained idea 
that some kook wanted to promote at IETF expense, but also for 
purposes that might be illegal.  For these reasons we would feel 
compelled to exercise more editorial control over Internet-Drafts 
if they were permanent. This would take away valuable time, energy, 
and money that we could otherwise use to work on technical problems.

As it is, we avoid the need to premptively shoot down hairbrained 
ideas precisely because we're not permanently publishing them 
until they've been reviewed by the community.  And while it might
still be necessary on occasion to remove an internet-draft due
to intellectual property violations or other legal reasons, the six 
month expiration date makes Internet-Drafts less attractive as a 
mechanism for illegal activity.  (it also helps that Usenet provides 
an alternative mechanism for such activity)

There's also a great deal of misrepresentation (or even abuse) of the 
Internet-Drafts mechanism: many vendors like to claim to the press that 
they have "submitted a specification to IETF" when in fact all they have 
done is submit an Internet-Draft.  This has no formal effect whatsoever, 
and in many cases (perhaps the majority of cases) such actions have zero 
effect on the standards eventually produced by IETF. But the press doesn't 
know that, and neither do most of their readers.  The public is therefore 
misled about how IETF functions, and this sometimes impairs IETF's 
ability to do work.  We don't need to encourage more of this kind of 
misrepresentation by making Internet-Drafts permanent documents.

Keith

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 22:35:18 -0400

Keith

---

From: "Casati, Alessio (Alessio)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 11:44:24 +0100

This is too tempting to respect what I promised.

> misrepresentation by making Internet-Drafts permanent documents.
I assume that the marketing effect you mention
has immediate effect at draft submission time. 
Indeed, marketing effect generally does not 
last for more than six months, and after that, 
either the idea was really good
and it becomes accepted, or marketing misuse of 
IETF process has no effect whatsoever (on the contrary, 
it may only prove one company not to have good ideas, 
to the extent that both the marketplace and the
IETF got rid of them, the latter being documented 
by an expired ID). 

This consideration  would lead to the need to 
destroy drafts when such misuse is detected. 
As you understand this is not feasible.

I wouldn't claim this organisation's institutional 
role would be protecting gullibles from being misled. 
They would be anyway.

Alessio

---

From: "Casati, Alessio (Alessio)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 11:44:24 +0100

Alessio

---

From: Maurizio Codogno <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 15:22:28 +0200 (MET DST)

" From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>

" Casati, Alessio (Alessio) wrote:
" ...
" > Anyway, it appears we have some volunteers
" > providing the repository, so this is becoming
" > a non issue.
" 
" Hardly. It's a matter of policy that I-Ds expire, because
" that is their nature. They are *drafts*, they are
" *working documents*, they should not be cited except as
" work in progress, so making them permanently available
" is completely inappropriate.

IMO, it is inappropriate to have them available as "official
documents", and I may understand that the IETF does not want
to endorse them even as "expired drafts" in their site.

But I don't see any reason why nobody could collect them
and make them available to the public, once they clearly
state that they have only historical status or something 
to this extent.

(without "expired working drafts", we would not have had
"The Beatles' Anthology"...)

ciao, .mau.

---

From: Maurizio Codogno <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 15:22:28 +0200 (MET DST)

ciao, .mau.

---

From: Charles Perkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 07:29:04 -0700 (PDT)

Brian,

> Hardly. It's a matter of policy that I-Ds expire, because
> that is their nature. They are *drafts*, they are
> *working documents*, they should not be cited except as
> work in progress, so making them permanently available
> is completely inappropriate.

While I agree with your premise, I totally disagree with your
conclusion.  When a draft expires, my inference is that the
proposals contained within are no longer under active consideration
within the IETF.  That is a much different conclusion than the
one you have drawn.

One good reason for making expired drafts permanently available
is that there are good ideas in expired drafts, as well as bad
ideas.  There are drafts from the mobile-ip working group that
expired years ago, yet containing ideas that often come up in
current discussion.  These drafts should be made available in
a place that is easily accessible to working group members.

If this is not something that the IETF wishes to undertake,
that is a policy decision.  It should not be made on the basis
of a faulty assumption -- namely, the assumption that expired
drafts necessarily have negative value.

Regards,
Charlie P.

PS. In fact, I'd say that there are better _technical_ reasons to
    permanently archive _some_ expired drafts, than _some_ old RFCs.

---

From: Charles Perkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 07:29:04 -0700 (PDT)

Brian,

Regards,
Charlie P.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 09:31:51 -0700

*> 
  *> Next we will make Historic RFCs unavailable and even purge them from the 
  *> list of RFCs.
  *> 

Dave,

This is a red herring (as you well know).  RFCs are by definition an
archival series.  They have lasted almost 30 years, and I hope the
publication of new RFCs will outlast me.

With respect to the main argument: an archival series requires a
carefully conceived set of rules and procedures, and it requires some
effort.  If you start retaining and cataloging old Internet Drafts, you
are on a slippery slope towards creating a second archival series.  I
believe, as Jon believed, that this would be a mistake.

This is not, and has never been, an easy issue.  There are strong
consequences to any choice, and some wisdom is required.  And contrary
to some opinions that have recently been expressed in this discussion,
I would say that the precedence of experience and 30 years of success
do deserve some weight in this consideration.

Bob Braden

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 09:31:51 -0700

*> 

Dave,

Bob Braden

---

From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 21:34:09 +1000

There are two issues here, perhaps three, that are all being confused
together.

One is whether anyone can really expect that all drafts will mysteriously
simply vanish into dust eventually ... clearly no-one can do that, old
drafts are kept in all kinds of places for all kinds of reasons.  That
much is plain.

Second, is whether anyone ought to explicitly making sure that old drafts
don't vanish.  This is where things start getting harder.   Let's take
a simple example - say I submit a draft, and in that, I include someone in
the acknowledgments, and manage to spell their name incorrectly.   That's
pointed out by one (usually many) of the dilligent readers, so I submit
an updated draft with a one character change.

Does the one with the spelling mistake need to be archived forever?

If you say yes, then I'd like to understand why, because I can't think of
a rational reason.

If you say no, then one of two things has happened - either you're agreeing
that there has to be some kind of decision making about which drafts are
to be archived forever, a point to which I shall return later, or your
"everything should be archived forever" position is really meant to apply
only to the last version of each internet draft, not all of the intermediate
versions that led to it.

If it is the latter, then you ought be aware that the last version of
every expired internet draft is a short note which says (something like)
"This draft has expired, for more information, contact ...".   Is that
the text that you want archived forever -- it is the final version?

Even if you expect that the version before that note is installed as the
replacement ought be the one which is archived, that doesn't help with the
case where the author sends in a replacement draft, which contains not
much more than "I have decided this was a bad idea, so the rest of the
content of the draft is deleted".   That doesn't happen (as such) these days,
because we all know that drafts expire, and will eventually (mostly) vanish.
But if I were expecting that some of my I-Ds were to be kept around and
available forever, I'd be replacing them with a message like that.

Further, this does happen, on a smaller scale - I've been the editor for
drafts, of which a fairly large part was devoted to some idea, or
method, which the WG later decided to abandon - leading to that entire
part being simply dropped from the next version of the draft.   If you really
wanted to archive everything of substance, you'd have to archive the
verion just before that change was made.   That's back to requiring a
human decision of which drafts get archived, and which are just trivial
updates and no archiving is required.

Now, if we can assume that we only archive where some human or other has
decided that the draft ought be archived, then that's what we have already
in the IETF - it's just that we rename the archived drafts, and call them
RFCs.   If the problem that some people are having is that they don't believe
enough is being archived this way, then that's just questioning the
judgement of those who decided not to bother to archive a particular
document - as long as we have some human judgement involved, there'll always
be other humand who disagree with that judgement.  That's OK, we can
live with that, in any case, it isn't anything which needs fundamentally
alter the way in which we operate.

That's the potential third issue - it relates to just how we make the
decision as to what we are achiving, and which may be worthy of discussion.

Simply saying "everything ought be archived" makes no sense, or rather,
would simply lead to a demand for some other series of documents which
don't get archived.   No-one archives everything.   Eg: this message may
end  up being archived with the ietf list, essentially forever.   But what
about the intermediate versions?   Where are they archived?   There were
many - clearly at least as many versions as there are characters in the
message, as a draft of this message existed in some form before each new
character was added - actually many more, because there have been many other
characters in this that I have erased and replaced.   Now no-one would suggest
that the version that existed when I had typed just to here <!> should be
archived as well as every other version - then it has to be understood that
that, on just a slightly coarser scale is what I-D versions are - they're
sent in partly completed, often not proof read (very well anyway), and
the expectation is that they'll be updated fairly quickly with better
versions, and the old one will vanish.

If draft archiving is to be done, then drafts won't be published that
way any more instead they'll be reviewed, and corrected, before they're
sent in, which I don't think would be good for the overall IETF process.
It is generally better to get the widest possible review as early in the
process as possible - and that means the widest distribution possible,
and that required a distribution mechanism that's very much like I-Ds are
today - a temporary distribution place (and announcement service) where
all can find everything that is currently relevant (and nothing which isn't).

Then, when something is worth archiving, it moves to the archive.

kre

---

From: "Tim Kehres" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 22:47:01 +0800

Bob,

>publication of new RFCs will outlast me.

Yes of course they are.  I happen however to agree with Dave's analogy
above, and believe that the older ID's can be useful.

>believe, as Jon believed, that this would be a mistake.

I think that Dave had it pretty much right when he suggested that a proper
labeling of the archive should solve this problem.  Everyone (for the most
part) seems to understand the difference between RFC's with different
status, and these are all catalogued together.  If the expired ID's are kept
separate, and it is well labeled that this is a historical archive of work
no longer in progress, I think it's pretty much a streach to think that the
same people that can deal with the RFC differences in status won't be able
to deal with a single catalog which is entirely of historical status.

An archive such as this, together with archives of the appropriate WG
discussion list(s) could serve as a valuable tool for anyone researching why
design decisions were made or not made.   This IMHO can only help future
work in this area.   Instead of revisiting an idea that has already been
hashed several times before, references can be made to the work already
carried out.

>do deserve some weight in this consideration.

If I'm not mistaken, several of the people that are arguing for the archives
have been part of this success story for much of this period of time.  As
such, I don't understand the point you are trying to make with the above
argument.

Best Regards,

Tim Kehres
International Messaging Associates
http://www.ima.com

---

From: Scott Bradner <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 14:30:10 -0400 (EDT)

> You mean a THIRD archival series. We already have STD and RFC.

a STD is an RFC with an additional label

Scott

---

From: Scott Bradner <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 14:51:33 -0400 (EDT)

> in that case, an RFC must be an internet-draft with a different label.

no, in that case there are two or more dociuments - N versions of the ID and 
then a seperate document that is the RFC

there is *one* document in the case of STD and RFC - "STD" is a
status put upon a RFC 

for example, from the RFC index

0768 User Datagram Protocol. J. Postel. Aug-28-1980. (Format: TXT=5896
     bytes) (Also STD0006) (Status: STANDARD) 

Scott

---

From: Scott Bradner <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 16:21:51 -0400 (EDT)

> and 'RFC' is a status put upon an internet-draft.

do go take a look at an internet draft & a RFC and see that they
are not the same document - an Internet draft gets reedited into
a new document to become a RFC - this is not the case with RFC & STD
STD 6 and RFC 768 are two names for the same document 

Scott

---

From: Scott Bradner <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 16:21:51 -0400 (EDT)

Scott

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 08:00:12 -0500

Excellent. A calm suggestion that didn't involve keeping every issue of
every I-D around forever.

The test scenario, for me, is what's necessary to keep the Hierarchical
Foreign Agents I-D around, even though it didn't progress to an RFC.

As I've said a couple of times, keeping every issue of every I-D around
seems like too high a price to pay.

If the default action was "remove", this seems reasonable.

I was thinking in terms of having WG chairs, ADs, etc. "sponsor" these
"mummified" I-Ds. Maybe that's not realistic, and (I agree with this one
more) maybe it's too parental (I have three kids. I'm a parent). Maybe
having the (actually, "an") author request that the I-D be mummified is
sufficient. 

The mummified I-Ds still need to move, so that they won't be trees in the
current forest.

I liked publishing mummified I-Ds directly as Historical RFCs, but this
isn't a plan if there's no sponsor involved. Move them and rename them
something like "expired-draft-montenegro-ltn-00.txt"?

Spencer

> From:	Tmima Koren [SMTP:[email-masked]]
> Sent:	Monday, August 23, 1999 3:44 AM
> To:	[email-masked]
> We can allow the author of the draft to recommend not to archive his draft
> or to remove it from the archive
> Tmima

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 08:00:12 -0500

Spencer

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 09:20:47 -0700

*> different publication mechanisms.  The IETF Secretariat issues I-Ds.  IANA 
  *> publishes RFCs.  They are related, but still separate.

Dave,

RFCs are published by the RFC Editor.  The IANA assigns protocol
parameters.  They are related, but still separate.

Bob Braden

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 09:20:47 -0700

Dave,

Bob Braden

---

From: Graham Klyne <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 07:18:33 +0100

At 15:16 16/08/99 -0700, [email-masked] wrote:

>I have heard several long-time IETFers say that their primary
>occupations at current IETF meetings is beating back old bad ideas.
>The negative effect of having a WHOLE ARCHIVE full of bad ideas for
>people to excavate might be considerable.

In my (admitedly limited) experience of observing these things, it seems
that those who have taken the trouble to do some excavation are more likely
to have discoverecd that such-and-such an idea was considered bad.  The
most common "beating back" I see is along the lines of "we considered that
back in XXXX -- read the achives to see why we rejected it".

In following this thread, I have come to a view that the old I-Ds in
isolation may have limited value, but if they can be set in context (e.g.
treated as part of a larger WG archive) there may be real value.  I think
it would be nice if there were some automagical way of fixing any given
draft to a point in a WG mailing list archive, but that may be too much to
ask (I think the value of historical IDs would be occasional and limited,
so any effort put into structuring such an archive would proably be better
applied elsewhere).

#g

------------
Graham Klyne
([email-masked])

---

From: Graham Klyne <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 07:18:33 +0100

#g

------------
Graham Klyne
([email-masked])