Re: [rfc-i] 3rd party SDO cross-referencing of IETF work (was: Re: Chair/datatracker tracking expired WG documents ?)

[Keith Drage <drageke=[e-mail]>]

To be honest, the only role I see for IETF in this discussion is 
education, i.e. to make clear to any SDO that happens to be using an 
IETF document as to what the status of that type of document is, 
primarily as to its stability, and likelihood to change. Of course, if 
an SDO sends a message concerning a particular document, then an honest 
reply is needed, and the prior work done in this area, e.g. between IETF 
and 3GPP is essential.

Whether a normative reference to an IETF document is a valid reference 
or not is govered by the rules of the SDO owning the document making the 
reference, not by the IETF. Essentially a normative reference is a macro 
call - at the point where a normative reference appears in an SDOs 
document, the reader inserts the referenced text from that referenced 
document. If an SDO publishes a document with a normative reference to 
an unstable document, then that is a problem between that SDO and their 
readership, and not one that belongs directly to IETF.

Of course the owners of any IPR in an IETF document that is so 
normatively referenced may also want to declare IPR against that SDOs 
referencing document, but that comes down to the owner of the IPR to 
handle, not the IETF.


regards

Keith

On 25/03/2022 22:10, BRUNGARD, DEBORAH A wrote:
> +1 Brian
>
> Pascal and Toerless - To me, you are both focusing on different targets.
>
> Pascal is concerned on IEEE references - Pascal, why not bring this up at the IEEE coordination meeting?
>
> Toerless - while we can hope other SDOs/Forums/run-by-the-night groups would not normatively reference IETF wg drafts or individual drafts, there's not much we can do. Maybe that other group allows it. I've seen where contributions are accepted which point at IETF individual drafts. Even after the group was "educated" on it by a concerned member. When it comes to publishing standards, the traditional SDOs (e.g. ITU) do have "rules". But the rules are the rules of that SDO. Just as IETF has guidelines, e.g. in the Shepherd writeup and IESG review, the normative references are reviewed if they are "in an unclear state", "publicly available". And SDOs recognize what is referenced may not be up-to-date as there is always a window of time, ITU has a disclaimer on it in their Recommendations saying a user is encouraged to investigate the most recent Recommendation or other reference. Maybe IETF should add something explicitly if you think it would help.
>
> If want to ask the IAB more on it, send mail to [e-mail]. I'm now on it, Toerless/Pascal, anytime want to chat, let's setup a virtual bar meet-
> Deborah
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WGChairs <[e-mail]> On Behalf Of Brian E Carpenter
> Sent: Friday, March 25, 2022 4:55 PM
> To: Salz, Rich <rsalz=[e-mail]>; 'Toerless Eckert' <[e-mail]>; Joel M. Halpern <[e-mail]>
> Cc: [e-mail]; [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: [rfc-i] Re: 3rd party SDO cross-referencing of IETF work (was: Re: Chair/datatracker tracking expired WG documents ?)
>
> Why should we care if some other SDO is happy to publish a "standard" with a normative dependency on a document whose preamble includes these words:
>
> '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."'
>
> This is not our problem.
>
> Trying to maintain cited-by pointers is approximately impossible. TimBL knew that, which is why the Web succeeded where other distributed hypertext projects failed. While I see why Toerless would like it, I don't think we can have it in the real world.
>
> Regards
>      Brian Carpenter
>
> On 26-Mar-22 01:21, Salz, Rich wrote:
>> This could be useful information to know. Does the liaison program not handle it?
>>
>>>     But of course, if an external SDO does choose to ignore our recommendation
>>       and is actually referrring to a draft in a published spec, then i still would
>>       rather like to know about it via such an explicit tracking mechanism than
>>       not to know about it.
>>
>> A potential problem is that, unless people (who, that's also a problem) are diligent about following up and discouraging such use, then it is very easy for the misbehaving SDO to say "but you never complained so we assumed it's okay."
>>
>>
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