Re: RFC archival format, was: Re: More liberal draft formatting standards required

[John Leslie <john at jlc.net>]

Stewart Bryant <stbryant at cisco.com> wrote:
> 
> That is an author centric view. It is far more important to take a 
> reader centric view.

   I must dissent.

   Reader-centric views belong to publishing entities that generate
income (whether by purchase, subscription, or advertising). There have
always been book publishers that generate reader-centric interpretations
of RFCs.

   It's expensive to do so; and such publishing entities are careful to
evaluate the potential market before producing one.

   IETF publications produce _no_ income; so we need to minimize the
expenses. That leaves us concentrating on the author-centric and
editor-centric views.

   I in no way dispute that other presentations can be "better" for the
reader; I only remind folks that we subsidize IETF publications through
our meeting fees, and other avenues are always available to publish
reader-centric versions.

   For one simple example, I know of nothing preventing citations of
self-published "guides" as Informative References in RFCs.

--
John Leslie <john at jlc.net>