Re: Proposed IESG statement on referencing documents behind a paywall

[Suresh Krishnan <[e-mail]>]

Hi Bernie and Paul,
  Good point. I need to check with the RFC editor on this one as they are the ones that define the citation formats.

Thanks
Suresh

> On Jun 12, 2019, at 7:22 PM, Bernie Volz (volz) <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> +1 ... something in the reference itself should indicate that the document (at time of writing) has restricted access.
> 
> That would also help all those involved and put less requirements on shepherds to confirm if all external references are publicly available (that might require disconnecting from a corporate vpn or not being on a corporate net to determine).
> 
> - Bernie
> 
>> On Jun 12, 2019, at 6:39 PM, Paul Kyzivat <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> 
>> IMO it would be better if the citation explicitly indicated that this document has a pay wall or limited access.
>> 
>>   Thanks,
>>   Paul
>> 
>>> On 6/12/19 6:00 PM, Suresh Krishnan wrote:
>>> Hi chairs,
>>>  In the past we have dealt with a few drafts that have had normative references to paywalled documents and we have dealt with them on a case-by-case basis (usually during or after IETF last call). In order to get the working groups involved earlier in the process, the IESG is working on issuing a statement on how to deal with such drafts and we would greatly appreciate input from WG chairs on this topic. This is the proposed text of the statement
>>> *** START TEXT ***
>>> As described in Section 7.1 of RFC 2026, RFCs may have normative
>>> references on external standards.
>>> In some cases, however, those references are themselves not generally
>>> available (for instance, they might be accessible only after paying
>>> a fee). This can interfere both with the ability of implementers
>>> to implement the protocol as well as with the ability of the IETF
>>> community to review it.
>>> In such cases:
>>> 1. The WG MUST be explicitly informed of any such normative reference
>>> and the WG MUST reach consensus that it is acceptable. The
>>> document shepherd MUST include this information in the shepherd
>>> writeup.
>>> 2. The reference MUST be explicitly noted as part of the IETF Last
>>> Call. If such a note is omitted, the last call MUST be repeated
>>> after including it.
>>> *** END TEXT ***
>>> Please go over this text and let me know if you have any concerns, comments, or additions by 2019/06/26.
>>> Thanks
>>> Suresh
>>