Re: Proposed IESG statement on referencing documents behind a paywall

[Keith Drage <[e-mail]>]

Coming late to this discussion.

The discussion seems to have diverged into all sorts of different 
issues, and I do not believe we ever had a problem statement at the 
start of the thread.

FIrstly the term "generally available" has a meaning throughout all the 
standards communities, and I do not think IETF shoud come up with a 
different meaning. That meaning is that it available to all and sundry - 
not that it is available for free to all and sundry.

I do agree for the purpose of review of IETF documents, reviewers should 
be able to feel they have access to referenced documents in order to do 
that review. I believe that has been dealt with successfully in the past 
by local agreements with various standards organisations and posting on 
IETF sites. Obviously anyone involved in the review process should be 
made aware of such a local arrangement.

As I say, that can be a local arrangement. It does not need to turn into 
a full out attack on an SDO's chosen revenue mechanism. Not even IETF 
documents are free - people donate money and you pay by your 
participation fees in IETF. And I have to pay for my internet connection 
to get to them. Other SDO's have chosen other means of paying their 
overheads.

Further I would point out that the content of normative references make 
normative references to other documents, and so on. I see nothing in the 
discussion that has addressed that point.


Keith


On 13/06/2019 16:07, Linda Dunbar wrote:
> Support this proposal.
>
> Linda Dunbar
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WGChairs <[e-mail]> On Behalf Of Suresh Krishnan
> Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2019 5:00 PM
> To: [e-mail]
> Subject: Proposed IESG statement on referencing documents behind a paywall
>
> 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
>
>