Re: IAFA WG minutes

[Peter Deutsch <[e-mail]>]

[ Aydin Edguer writes: ]
> 
> Hi Peter,
> 	Sorry to be a bother, but did I miss a message on the IAFA mailing
> list?  I can't seem to find a copy of the minutes from the last IAFA WG
> meeting.  Did you become busy again?

I'm sorry about this, there was obviously a mixup. I wrote
them up and sent them to Alan for editing before sending
them into the IETF secretariat. When they were sent to the
IETF, I didn't notice that they weren't also sent to the
IAFA list as well. My fault....

Here they are, and I'll CC them to the IAFA list for
comments. We are tied up for the next week or so as archie
went into beta today, but should be getting back to IAFA
in a couple of weeks. Comments that arrive in the meantime
will certainly be read and noted.


				- peterd

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Here are the minutes for the IAFA-WG meeting in Boston. Enjoy, and do with
them as you will.....


				- peterd (the tired one with 
					  the aching fingers)

----------------------------------------------------------------------


23rd IETF       Internet Anonymous FTP Archives Working Group          Minutes
Boston                            (IAFA-WG)                       July 15,1992


Co-Chairs:  Peter Deutsch                                   
            Alan Emtage


          --------------------------------------------------


1)  The Minutes of the San Diego meeting were accepted as read.

2)  The Site Administrator's Draft Document has now been split into two
    parts by the authors. It was agreed that this was appropriate and the
    change endorsed. Document 1 describes the procedure for setting up and
    maintaining an anonymous FTP archive site. Document 2 describes a
    list of templates which may be used by anonymous FTP archive sites to
    distribute information about the site itself as well as data and
    services served by that site. 

3)  A detailed discussion of the current drafts of the two new documents
    was conducted. 

    - Questions about the examples used in the second document were
      raised due a possible perception of "UNIX bias" in the current
      draft. The general consensus was that those individuals wishing to
      perform the exercise of constructing appropriate templates for other
      operating systems should do so and contribute them for
      incorporation into the final document. However, it was considered
      that the current draft was adequate for the purpose.

    - It was agreed that a section on "Packaging for Delivery" was
      needed, which would explain the various compressing, archiving and
      other packaging techniques now in use on the Internet.  This will
      include (but not be limited to) UNIX tar and compress, Mac BINHEX,
      etc. formats.  A draft of this section will be inserted for the next
      draft.

4)  It was agreed that the section on "ethics" and "illegal" practices
    such as storing copyrighted material without proper release, etc.
    should be strengthened and split recognizing however, that the
    definition of "illegal" may vary widely between different
    jurisdictions. Administrators should be encouraged to check for the
    rules, laws and regulations governing their own environment. A
    disclaimer on liability was also suggested.

5)  Following up on a suggest made at the last meeting in San Diego, it
    was agreed that a section on "Other recommended tools for archive
    administrators" should be added. This will provide a brief overview
    of other information tools now available on the Internet with care
    taken not to "endorse" any specific project. This will also be added
    for the next draft.

6)  It was agreed that, given the quick progress being made on Uniform
    Resource Locators (URL), Uniform Resources Identifiers (URI) and
    Uniform Resource Serial Numbers (URSN) (with work coming out of the
    UDI BOF and probable Working Group), that fields to accommodate these
    be added to the appropriate templates in Document 2.

7)  It was agreed that more work needs to be done on the "Why you should
    run an archive" section of the first document.

8)  Ellen Hoffman of Merit ([e-mail]) has volunteered her
    site to coordinate submissions of Services records (as defined in the
    second document) until services directories start to become widely
    available. It was agreed that an additional field "Sponsoring
    Organization:" should be added to support this sort of "proxy-list"
    service.

9)  No agreement was reached on the the issue of developing a "cost daemon"
    program for ranking the distance or reachability of an archive from a
    particular user's host, although there was some interest in the idea.
    Peter Deutsch ([e-mail]) will act as coordinator for
    Volunteers interested in working on such a project.


10) Questions were asked about a recommended procedure for registering new
    information sites as they come on-line. Currently they are discovered
    through ad hoc methods such as a posting to comp.archives{.admin},
    email to an archie site, etc. It was agreed that this should be noted
    in the first document, advising new sites to post their availability
    to comp.archives and other avenues for the distribution of this
    information should be pursued.

11) In discussing the section on security, it was pointed out that a
    number of sites continue to run anonymous FTP archives to exchange
    non-public information. Such sites function without password
    protection and the information so stored is publicly available via
    the standard anonymous FTP login procedure. It was agreed that a
    strengthened section on security would specifically warn against this
    practice, as it constitutes a form of "security through obscurity"
    that is not endorsed and which has already been shown to be
    problematic in practice.

12) The subject of a companion "User Guide to Anonymous FTP" was again
    raised and it was again agreed that such a document would be useful.
    Ellen Hoffman of Merit ([e-mail]) and April Marine of
    SRI ([e-mail]) have agreed to examine a number of current
    freely available documents with the intention of editing them to
    make them suitable for a more general audience.


13) In a general discussion on missing attributes in various templates,
    it was suggested that the following be considered:

	- in templates describing textural information a field to list
	  the ISO standard encoding for language and character set should
	  be added.

	- In templates describing documents (such as IAFA-ABSTRACT) a
	  field listing the ISBN number (if available) should be
	  considered.

	- Where appropriate, fields to list appropriate "Distribution:"
	  and "Copying:" fields should be added.

	- Additional available contact information such as FAX numbers
	  should be added.

New Business:

14) It was agreed that work should begin on documenting URIs, UDIs and
    URSNs. It was agreed that the chairs in concert with Tim Berners-Lee
    of CERN ([e-mail]) would canvas the Area Directors for
    User Services and Applications to determine whether IAFA should play
    a role in this, or new/additional Working Groups should be tasked
    with the job.

15) It was agreed that there might be interest in a document explaining
    tools intended to coordinate sharing of information across the
    Internet. These might include existing tools or look at
    specifications to encourage new tools. A summary of such tools will
    be investigated and a concrete proposal prepared for the next meeting.

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Minutes prepared by:		Peter Deutsch ([e-mail])
Mailing List:			[e-mail]
Archive:			archives.cc.mcgill.ca
Administrative Contact:		[e-mail]



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