Re: [rfc-i] John/rsoc: Re: Page numbers in RFCs questions / preferences

[Robert Sparks <[e-mail]>]

On 10/26/20 1:24 PM, John R. Levine wrote:
>> But when the community asks that the tools produce something 
>> different for their local use, and it's easy and inexpensive to add 
>> and maintain, it doesn't seem like it's the right thing to do to deny 
>> it by policy.
>
> I see one grumpy author who wants page numbers.

Well, again, its important to  "to be published" to be clear what you're 
talking about. I've heard more, and achieving the consensus in the 
documents for what would be published was not easy. I expect it will 
continue to be a topic of consideration, but acknowledge that for the 
published formats, changing it will require going through the full 
consensus process again.

>   If we're going to add every tweak that one person wants, it's going 
> to get awfully expensive.

That's a terrible generalization to bring to the question I was pointing 
at. _This_ tweak is extremely cheap - the code already has to produce 
these numbers for internet-drafts, so the cost is a flag.

The cost of a well-known published set of documents that look like RFCs 
but have had some changes made is different and should be addressed 
separately. (I'll point here to the inline errata for pre-v3 format rfcs.)

>
>> The RFC editor does not publish an epub format, for example. If 
>> someone were to contribute an epub formatter that was reasonable to 
>> merge and maintain, we should merge that. Allowing the tools to 
>> produce page numbers for local use falls pretty close to that doesn't 
>> it?
>
> No, it's something the IETF explicitly considered and rejected when it 
> designed the new format.

Which "it"? If you meant epub, RFC7990 says

> 7.4.  Potential Future Publication Formats
>
> 7.4.1.  EPUB
>
>     This format is intended for use by ebook readers and will be
>     available for RFCs after the requirements have been defined.  No
>     document on this topic is currently available.
That certainly isn't rejection - certainly not of creating epub, and not 
even of publishing things in epub in the long run. We had to choose what 
was feasible with the initial tooling effort, and epub didn't make 
_that_ cut.

>
> Regards,
> John Levine, [e-mail], Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for 
> Dummies",
> Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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