[Tools-discuss] Let's not be hostile to authors

[Carsten Bormann <[e-mail]>]

On 27. Jun 2021, at 04:40, John R Levine <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>> Excellent. Is there any reason not to run the v2 to v3 converter automatically?
> 
> We really want people to stop using v2.  It's obsolete and missing some semantic features of v3.

John,

let me be blunt here.

The attitude that it is OK to be hostile to document authors in order to further some meaningless abstract goal is completely unacceptable and has to stop.

There are good reasons to continue submitting v2 or v2-with-v3 documents.

For people actually authoring in XML, the version control history of all but the most recently started documents is in v2.  A wholesale v3 conversion loses all that history.

For people using a tool to generate the XML, it is unacceptable to require their tools to generate exactly the v3 of the day, in particular as xml2rfc has a perfect v3 generator inside, which by the nature of the process is more likely to stay in sync with the ongoing fixes to v3.

And, in case I haven't been clear enough, the needs (and even more so the wants!) of the RPC are entirely secondary to those of the authors here, as 98 % of the work on a document happens before the RPC gets it, and the resources feeding that work are non-renewable.

(And yes, the abstract goal of furthering the v3 transition is not entirely meaningless in the long run, but we are *way* off from that goal being a realistic short-term objective.  And the feature of xml2rfc to be more permissive in its converter input than the v3 publishing format must *never* go away, at least as long as we consider the time and quality of work of our authors and tool makers to be a precious resource.)

Grüße, Carsten