Re: [xml2rfc-dev] [Ext] v3 <seriesInfo> vs IMPNOTES vs canonical XML

Paul Hoffman <paul.hoffman@icann.org> Thu, 19 December 2019 18:09 UTC

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From: Paul Hoffman <paul.hoffman@icann.org>
To: Heather Flanagan <rse@rfc-editor.org>
CC: Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@gmx.de>, John R Levine <johnl@taugh.com>, XML Developer List <xml2rfc-dev@ietf.org>
Thread-Topic: [Ext] [xml2rfc-dev] v3 <seriesInfo> vs IMPNOTES vs canonical XML
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Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2019 18:09:10 +0000
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Subject: Re: [xml2rfc-dev] [Ext] v3 <seriesInfo> vs IMPNOTES vs canonical XML
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On Dec 19, 2019, at 9:56 AM, Heather Flanagan <rse@rfc-editor.org> wrote:
> While that is technically possible (to mechanically update source files), it is against policy. What you’re suggesting is in effect changing the canonical source file, and we’ve said that’s not something we’re going to do.
> 
> I expect future vocabulary changes may well make older XML invalid (in the same way that v2 XML is not v3 valid). We’re not going to go back and change the files to match whatever the new reality is; I don’t see this as significantly different a situation. John and the rest of the community may decide different in the future, of course, but I never intended changing source files for any reason.

The current canonical RFCs in XML don't match any published spec. This leaves us in the situation of having to publish a new spec that might have escape clauses ("the XML might contain X or Y for this element") and then later publish a more definitive spec that says what we really want. Or, we can admit that we made a mistake with the current canonical XML and fix them when the revision to RFC 7991 is finished. This is related to the decision about what the version number for the revision to RFC 7991 will be, given that the current canonical XML is not honestly reporting the version number.

--Paul Hoffman