Re: Alternative formats for IDs

[Dave Crocker <dhc2 at dcrocker.net>]

> > There is not currently a version of xml2rfc that meets our
> > needs. 

I do not recall seeing any input from the RFC Editor, on the XML2RFC mailing 
list, citing xml2rfc's deficiencies.

That makes it difficult to get those deficiencies fixed.

Please, please, please. Post those deficiencies to that list.


>   The
> issue arises from handing you a format that contains generic
> markup and is editable but, because of your "via nroff" process,
> requires authors to deduce substantive and editorial changes
> from diffs and then retrofit them back into the XML for future
> use.


This point has been made a number of times, recently.  Its importance appears to 
remain under-appreciated.

IETF documents are subject to revision by new editors.  They currently find it 
difficult or impossible to ensure that they are starting from the correct master 
version.

To the extent that they must start from the .txt version, they have significant 
startup costs (with significant potential for introducing new errors) in order 
to convert the document to a format better suited to editing -- e.g., better 
able to manipulate the document's structure.

What the IETF community needs is to be able to obtain an accurate, 
revisable-form version of published documents.  xml2rfc is the best candidate 
for that form.  We therefore need to find a way for the RFC Editor to maintain 
the master version of RFCs in that form.

d/

--

Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
<http://bbiw.net>

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