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

[Carl Malamud <[e-mail]>]

Hi Scott -

Thanks for pointing out the proceedings.  Having the i-d's published
there certainly demonstrates how futile it is to pretend that we
can erase history.  The position that Bill Manning and Joe Touch are
taking reminds of when I was ordered by the Secretary-General of
the ITU to erase all Internet copies of their standards.

I was a little puzzled by the strong reaction of both Bill Manning
and Joe Touch.  They seem to be bringing up two points:

1. Bill has pointed out that some I-D's are *not* offered in
accordance with section 10 of rfc2026 and thus, as I understand
his reasoning, he only granted a 6-month license to publish.

2. Joe seems to take a stronger position, which is all I-D's are
(or have been) granted only a 6-month license to publish.

I went back and reviewed the RFC's (many of which you wrote),
and they are extremely unclear on the subject.  In fact, 2026
makes it clear that all the I-D's will be archived.  Earlier
docs don't touch on the subject.  And, the preamble appended
to every draft is pretty unclear.

What is clear is that an I-D is "valid" for only six months.
As I understand that term it means "on the table for consideration
by the IESG or others as a possible standard."

With all due respect, it seems to me that there is no prior
policy on this subject and the texts are very much subject to
differing interpretations.  I believe both Bill and Joe are taking
very extreme positions on the subject and I'm not sure their views
reflect anything resembling a prior policy, or even a universal
understanding.  It seems like a very legalistic interpretation
of a very vague policy, and (imho) that policy goes against
core values like openess, and transparency.

In any case, it does sound like decomposing the problem into two
pieces makes sense:

1. make a clear going-forward "keep all drafts in an archive" policy
2. figure out if there might be a community consensus to decide
   what the prior policy was, perhaps using a mechanism such as
   opt-out if there is a vocal but very small minority who disagrees.

Regards,

Carl

> 
> Something was pointed out to me in private mail that I should have 
> remembered but did not.
> 
> Since Aug 1998 the IETF proceedings have included the then-current 
> Internet drafts (except for one meeting which seems to be missing).
> 
> As I recall, this was started when the secretariat started offering CDs 
> of the proceedings and there was extra space on the CDs. It was 
> decided to include the IDs since the space was there to do so. 
> (My memory is that Steve Coya suggested this to the IESG and the 
> IESG thought it was a good idea.)
> 
> Anyway - that means that most IDs since mid 1998 are already posted on
> the IETF web site, they are just not posted in an easy to use way.
> 
> see
> 
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/98aug/I-D/
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/98dec/I-D/ 
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/99mar/I-D/ 
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/99jul/I-D/
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/99nov/I-D/
> 00mar - missing
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/00jul/I-D/
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/00dec/I-D/
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/01mar/I-D/
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/01aug/I-D/
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/01dec/I-D/
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/02mar/I-D/
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/02nov/I-D/
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/03mar/I-D/
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/03jul/I-D/
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/03nov/I-D/
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/04mar/I-D/
> 
> Scott
> 
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