Re: Status of SNMPv2 Documents

[Brian O'Keefe <[e-mail]>]

IESG, SNMPv2 WG:

I have remained silent long enough. This is getting out of hand.
Marshall's claims about authorship are flat out dis-information.


> perhaps there is some confusion here.
> 
> all four original authors remain authors.
> 
> however, they are listed in the authors section, not on the front page.
> 
> it seems to me that only two set of hands (the old editor, me, and the
> current editor, keith) has ever touched these documents since the time
> they were handed over to the working group at its inception, lo these
> many years ago. further, that since that time, there have been many,
> many, many changes, additions, enhancements, improvements, etc.,  in
> other words, these documents are supposed to reflect a community
> work-product,
> 
> as such, listing the original authors in an authors' section, and the
> editor on the front-page seems wholly appropriate.


First, there is NO authors' section in any of the documents (I quote
below from draft-ietf-snmpv2-proto-ds-05.txt as example).  There is
only an acknowledgements section that includes varying degree of 
"contribution".  This hardly constitutes recognition as "authors".


                ----- draft-ietf-snmpv2-proto-ds-05.txt -----

5.  Acknowledgements

This document is the result of significant work by the four major
contributors:

     Jeffrey Case (SNMP Research, [e-mail])
     Keith McCloghrie (Cisco Systems, [e-mail])
     Marshall Rose (Dover Beach Consulting, [e-mail])
     Steven Waldbusser (International Network Services, [e-mail])

In addition, the contributions of the SNMPv2 Working Group are
acknowledged.  In particular, a special thanks is extended for the
contributions of:

     <list of mar95-interim-meeting-attendees, plus a few others>

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

Second, the degree of changes made to the NON-Admin-Framework documents
is hardly substantial enough to warrant stripping the original author's
names from the front cover.  Further, none of the Admin documents are
included from the current set of eight pre-existing Proposed Standard
documents that are now subject to Last Call.

Third, when the NM Area Director announced her intention to only put
the editor's name on the front cover, it was in the midst of very 
concentrated debate over the Admin Framework documents.  In that context,
it was my understanding that this edict applied to the Admin Framework
docuements.  I publically asked for clearification, but received no 
response from the NM-AD... this was obviously a sensitive subject.
I was shocked when the "executive decision" was announced in October 
that this action would apply to all of the documents; but by then, 
I had become so frustrated with the political bull-xxxx going on that 
I removed myself from further discussion on the mailing list. 

In conclusion, I fully support such an action with respect to documents
that have broad and substantial community contribution.  However, I do
not find this to be the case with respect to the eight SNMPv2 documents
currently before the IESG.

Regards,
bok