RE: Proposed IESG statement on referencing documents behind a paywall

["Roni Even (A)" <[e-mail]>]

Hi,
Sorry for the late feedback

I want to point out that some of this references may refer to SDO's documents that are available to members only. This is a bigger problem for accessing.  Note that now some persons/companies may not be able to become members of such SDO so they cannot even pay to get access,
I have no solution but I do not think that it should prevent such references but it must be noted that these references are available only to members.

Roni Even

-----Original Message-----
From: WGChairs [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Keith Drage
Sent: Monday, July 01, 2019 12:51 AM
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Proposed IESG statement on referencing documents behind a paywall

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
>
>