Re: References to prior work (was: Re: Last call comments about draft-housley-tls-authz-extns-07)

[Paul Hoffman <paul.hoffman at vpnc.org>]

At 12:39 PM -0500 3/5/07, John C Klensin wrote:
> --On Monday, 05 March, 2007 09:19 -0800 Paul Hoffman
> <paul.hoffman at vpnc.org> wrote:
>
> >  At 8:53 AM -0800 3/5/07, Bob Braden wrote:
> > >    *> FWIW, I don't think we want to start bouncing specs
> > >    because they *> don't pay homage - in this case all the
> > >    similarities are probably *> the only obvious ways to add
> > >    authorization tokens to a TLS *> handshake. Such downrefs
> > >    to dead documents would anyway add yet *> more cruft to the
> > >    RFC process, so let's not.
> > >    *>
> > >    *> S.
> > >    *>
> > >
> > >  s/cruft/integrity/
> >
> >  How does adding a downref to a dead document add more
> >  integrity to the RFC process?
>
> Independent of the merits in this particular case, it provides
> history and context.

Fully disagree. A reference to a dead document that the reader cannot 
find directly provides no histor nor context. A diligent reader might 
use Google et. al., to search for the title, but they are then 
possibly confronted with documents with the same name and no way to 
know which the author meant. That is neither good history nor good 
context.

To be clear: downrefs to living documents that can identified by name 
is clearly a good thing, but downrefs to dead documents reduces the 
credibility of the RFC process because typical readers will ask "why 
can't I find this old Internet Draft" and then get sucked into the 
the vortex of the debates about the IETF keeping a public archive of 
old documents.

> We have learned, or should have learned,
> two things over and over again:
>
> 	(1) Failure to provide context and a track through
> 	rejected and alternative suggestions results in "new"
> 	proposals to try the same things again, usually from
> 	people who had no idea about the prior work.

That is not fixed with a reference to a dead document.

> 	(2) Providing good documentation that recognizes the
> 	origins of an idea and its date, even if there were some
> 	changes from the original version, can be very helpful
> 	in defending our work against patent vultures who try to
> 	make filings on work that the IETF has had under
> 	development for some time.

That can be done much more effectively by other mechanisms that cause 
less confusion to someone reading an RFC than a reference to 
something that they cannot get their hands on.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

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