Re: archives (was The other parts of the report....

braden@ISI.EDU (Bob Braden)  wrote on 13.09.04 in <5.2.1.1.2.20040913130620.02e34200@boreas.isi.edu>:

> > > I have yet to see a coherent argument for keeping the ID series if it's
> > > archived publicly. Why do we need to see the entire process - in public
> > > - of editing and revision? And if we do, why do we need two separate
> > > series to do this?
> >
> >It's not a document series, it's preserving history - exactly the same way
> >that the mailing list archives do, using the exact same arguments. (And
> >incidentally, the exact same situation wrt. "getting published".)
> >
> >If you argue that you want to abolish the mailing list archives, I think
> >you'll find strong opposition; I certainly do not see why the I-D
> >situation is any different.

> This "preserving history" notion is an obfuscation.  If there is a stable
> reference to each particular I-D, then the set of I-Ds with those stable
> references necessarily form an archival document series.

You might as well claim that the mailing list archives create an archival  
document series. That is nothing but a red herring.

> The Original Intent of the IETF founding fathers was that the RFCs should
> form the stable, archival document series for the Internet technology,
> containing its entire intellectual history (to use Scott's term), while
> I-Ds were to be
> ephemeral.  This is analogous to academic publication; we archive only
> the finished papers, not the 17 drafts that go into the production of each
> paper.

But neither are those 17 drafts published, while the 17 I-Ds are. So, for  
that matter, is all the mailing list discussion around those drafts.

The situation is not even remotely parallel.

> Publication in a conference or journal is a filter that keeps us from
> hopelessly
> garbaging up the intellectual record.  The FFs believed that preserving
> I-Ds would
> lead to such a garbage pile with piles of chaff for every grain of wheat.

How on earth do I-Ds "hopelessly garbage up the intellectual record" when  
mailing list archives don't?! That doesn't even begin to make any sense.

> Of course, the IETF has drifted far away from this OI.
>
> But then, you knew all that.

"[T]hat the RFCs should form the stable, archival document series for the  
Internet technology" is certainly still true.

The "containing its entire intellectual history" part was never true, as  
far as I can tell, nor does that claim seem at all sensible. You cannot  
get the entire intellectual history from only looking at the end results.  
That much certainly should be obvious.

It seems to me your definition of "entire" must be really strange.

MfG Kai

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