Subject: ietf 1id_guidelines tool broken

From: William Allen Simpson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:42:51 -0500

As of Feb 9th, the IESG posted a second status boilerplate.  But the tool
doesn't yet recognize it....  Be warned.

---

From: William Allen Simpson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:03:04 -0500

Henrik Levkowetz wrote:
> On 2010-02-26 20:42 William Allen Simpson said the following:
> Specifics, please?
>  * Is this the idnits tool or some other tool?
>  * Which version did you use?

Whatever the IETF Secretariat is using.

>  * Did you use the downloaded script or the web-service, and if so, with which URL?
>  * Which boilerplate change specifically isn't recognized? I.e., what is your input?

http://www.ietf.org/ietf-ftp/1id-guidelines.txt

I-D Guidelines                                 R. Housley (for the IESG)
                                                           Vigil Security
                                                          9 February 2010

    In the modern Internet, the need for stable URLs is more important
    than providing multiple sites around the world to obtain I-Ds.
    Also, search engines have replaced the need for a file containing
    a collection of I-D abstracts.  As a result, the second choice is:

       "This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
       provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

       Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
       Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
       working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current
       Internet-Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current.

       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.""

>  * What is the output of the tool, given your input?
> 
   ** The document seems to lack a 1id_guidelines paragraph about
      Internet-Drafts being working documents -- however, there's a paragraph
      with a matching beginning. Boilerplate error?

      1id_guidelines, paragraph 1:
      "Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task
       Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that other
       groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts."

      ... text found in draft:
      "Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task
       Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working
..................^
       documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts
       is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current."

   ** The document seems to lack a 1id_guidelines paragraph about the list of
      current Internet-Drafts.

      1id_guidelines, paragraph 3:
      "The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
       http://www.ietf.org/1id-abstracts.html"

   ** The document seems to lack a 1id_guidelines paragraph about the list of
      Shadow Directories.

      1id_guidelines, paragraph 4:
      "The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
       http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html"

---

From: William Allen Simpson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 22:46:25 -0500

Henrik Levkowetz wrote:
> The short response to the information below is that it seems that the
> secretariat is still running version 2.12.00 of idnits, while the newer
> version 2.12.01 (released 4 Feb 2010) accepts the new boilerplate correctly.
> I'm notifying the secretariat so they can update to the newest version.
> 
> ---
> 
> The longer response is that diagnosing this required much more time than
> would have been required if all the requested and available information
> had been supplied below (instead of flippancy); further comments inline:
> 
> On 2010-02-27 00:03 William Allen Simpson said the following:
>> Henrik Levkowetz wrote:
> Not particularly helpful.  The program version is indicated on the first line
> of its output.  It would have been good if you'd provided the full output
> below, instead of snipping away part of it.
> 
I forwarded you the full output section that was sent to me by the
"IETF Drafts Team" <[email-masked]>.  There is no version.

The sentence before was "Please let me know if you have any questions."

The line after was "Sincerely,"

Obviously, that was all boilerplate.  When I called her, Stephanie had no
idea that there was a problem.  Her hands were tied.

> As indicated earlier, what you provide here is only part of the output, and
> you've managed to snip away the part which would have made the actual problem
> obvious without detective work.
> 
You are incorrect.  Get off your high horse.  You should have notified the
secretariat of the version change weeks ago.

---

From: William Allen Simpson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2010 07:17:57 -0500

Henrik Levkowetz wrote:
> Your initial 'bugreport' contained no specifics whatsoever.
> 
> You inappropriately sent the 'tool is broken' message to the whole IETF
> general discussion list, in addition to addressing me directly (so it's
> not as if you didn't know where to direct a bug report).
> 
All IETF draft submitters need to know promptly, as Monday is the deadline
for -00 version internet-drafts.

It took some time (2 hours) to figure out that you had written the tool
that generated the bad output, as the secretariat does not put your name
(nor the tool name nor the version number) in their response message.

I'm regretting wasting my time (finding you).

And you probably shouldn't increment the .trivial for such a huge change.
That was really a major change (as was 1id_guidelines itself).

Maybe that's the reason the secretariat didn't think it was important
enough to install.

> All of the above earns you no respect with me, and that colours my
> responses.  Next time, send a bug report to the secretariat or to me
> directly, containing specifics that lets us *fix* the problem, rather
> than blazoning an unspecific and unhelpful 'Things don't work' message
> across the sky, and you might get a different tone back.
> 
It was reported to the secretariat directly ~13:53 EST by 'phone, but
could not be fixed promptly.

AFAICT, it's still not updated!

   http://tools.ietf.org/tools/idnits/

At this very moment:

Version: 2.12.00
Author:

Note the author is missing here, too.

Also, the verbose output doesn't count line lengths correctly.  Apparently,
it is including the non-printing FF in the count.  Not good.

<sarcasm>
Also, this was somewhat amusing:

   ** Obsolete normative reference: RFC 1700 (ref. 'RFC 3232') (Obsoleted by
      RFC 3232)

Outstanding!  Fails on the reference to RFC 1700 in the *title* of the
RFC 3232 reference that obsoleted RFC 1700:

1432	   [RFC 3232]  Reynolds, J., "Assigned Numbers: RFC 1700 is Replaced by
1433	               an On-line Database", January 2002.
</sarcasm>

At least the secretariat was smart enough to know that "**" pseudo-error
was bogus, and didn't include it in their message to me.

As I wrote previously, get off your high horse.  We really don't need the
attitude....  Next time, test to see that your own code was installed and
actually works.  It's obvious that you never tested much of anything.

---

From: William Allen Simpson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:20:11 -0500

Henrik Levkowetz wrote:
> So you're still maintaining that it's good and right to send out a notice
> of a problem widely and provide no information which makes it possible to
> resolve it?  Bah!
> 
Please stop before you embarrass yourself further.  The original report
was very clear:

   "As of Feb 9th, the IESG posted a second status boilerplate."

Indeed, the new Feb 9th status section itself is clearly written with the
word "second".  (I've also sent you the *entire* section as written.)

   "But the tool doesn't yet recognize it...."

*PROVEN*, as of yesterday, and you admit farther down this message that
some (many/most) servers weren't running the needed updated software.

Given the secretariat message doesn't identify the tool or the version,
you had *all* the information that was sent me by the secretariat.

> You're not duplicating what I've been saying.  The tool *was* installed
> on February 4th.  Somewhere there's been a slip-up, but translating that
> into evaluation of importance is nonsense.
> 
No, it wasn't.  At least, not on the server the secretariat was using,
nor on the server that I accessed a day later.  Two strikes.

> Ooh, that's not good.  The .01 version is only available on some of the
> tools servers, not all.  Fixed.
> 
>> Author:
>>
> Funny.  I see my name quite clearly on the web page there.
> 
Still missing.  Apparently, somebody thought that field should be
displayed with javascript, which no security-minded person runs.

>> it is including the non-printing FF in the count.  Not good.
Same problem with "idnits 2.12.01"

> I'm afraid I can't comment on this, as the error message is based on the content
> of the reference entry in your document, which you've not seen fit to provide,
> although I requested it in my first note.
> 
And yet, you don't seem to be able to read the entry provided before your
very eyes.  That's it.  Try it in your own testbed.  Or wait for the
internet-draft to be posted, and test it then.

> It would be obvious to you if you'd looked at the idnits report of your own
> submission that idnits *had* been installed:
>   https://datatracker.ietf.org/idst/display_idnit.cgi?submission_id=21622
> 
That is a URL you have apparently made up to access your tool.  Of course
it works as you desire, and accesses the appropriate tool version (today).
Prior to your message, there was never any indication such a URL exists.

The URL provided by the secretariat in an email on Feb 25th was:

I-D Submission Tool URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/idst/status.cgi?submission_id=21622

At this moment in time today, that still doesn't work:

<blockquote>
Your request was not processed due to the following error(s):
Error - Draft is not in an appropriate status for the requested page
</blockquote>

I have no idea what that means....

---

From: William Allen Simpson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:49:55 -0500

Many thanks to Stephanie for manually overriding the broken tool(s), and
processing the draft this morning.

After 3 dozen RFCs over 22+ years, that was my first attempt to use the
automated submission tool -- a mistake I'm unlikely to make again....

William Allen Simpson wrote:
> I-D Submission Tool URL: 
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/idst/status.cgi?submission_id=21622
> 
Even though the draft has already been posted this morning, this status
tool still doesn't work.  The same quality of work as the idnits tool.

Hopefully, the putative author can devote some attention to translating
that meaningless drivel into something more user friendly.  Perhaps after a
refresher course on ego-less programming -- and professional counseling for
anger management....