Subject: Re: Working documents repository

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

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From: "Martin J. Duerst" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 13:55:37 +0900

> If you say yes, then I'd like to understand why, because I can't think of

Very easy: Because it's cheaper to archive things automatically
after 6 months than to discuss and implement separate policies
for the borderline cases as the one above. Harddisk space is
much cheaper (and continuing to get cheaper) than human effort.

After this, the whole rest of your mail, with all the deliberations
about what to archive and what not, just becomes unnecessary.

> all can find everything that is currently relevant (and nothing which isn't).

The current service would stay as is. The expired drafts would be
automatically moved to a different location.

Regards,   Martin.

#-#-#  Martin J. Du"rst, World Wide Web Consortium
#-#-#  mailto:[email-masked]   http://www.w3.org

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From: "Martin J. Duerst" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 13:55:37 +0900

Regards,   Martin.

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From: Tmima Koren <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 01:44:07 -0700

>about what to archive and what not, just becomes unnecessary.

We can allow the author of the draft to recommend not to archive his draft
or to remove it from the archive
Tmima

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From: Tmima Koren <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 01:44:07 -0700