Re: [IAB] issue with the URLs in the ID boilerplate

[John C Klensin <klensin at jck.com>]

--On Monday, October 26, 2009 13:53 +0200 Lars Eggert
<lars.eggert at nokia.com> wrote:

> On 2009-10-26, at 13:40, Thomas Heide Clausen wrote:
>> If we assume that IDs = IETF-IDs + Other-IDs, is it then
>> appropriate (or even true?) to assume that also "Other-IDs"
>> have a 6 month validity time?
> 
> Let's try a different approach. Instead of saying
> "Internet-Drafts come from the IETF but maybe also elsewhere",
> let's go back to saying that IDs are IETF docs but others may
> write stuff that looks like IDs (but aren't). That solves that
> issue and is maybe also overall
> cleaner:
> 
>    Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet
> Engineering
>    Task Force (IETF).  Other groups may distribute documents
> that look
>    like Internet-Drafts, but are not IETF documents.  The IETF
>    Internet-Drafts repository is at
> http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/.
>...

I think this is missing the point.   Unless I'm mistaken, the
reason for the "other groups..." language is that what we now
call the IAB, IRTF, and Independent Submission streams all use
the I-D publication mechanism without thereby making the
documents "working documents of the Internet Engineering Task
Force (IETF)".   Those documents may still be "IETF documents"
(a term that has become important from an IETF Trust
perspective), but are obviously not "working documents of the
IETF" since, by definition, the IETF is not working on them.

The issue isn't what others might produce that look like
something we might produce.  That wouldn't require any special
statement.

Observation: as the topic moves from the broken URL problem to
textual statements in the boilerplate, using the wg-chairs list
to becomes, IMO, less and less the right place to be trying to
make decisions on the questions involved.   First, the people
with the history of how the current language came to be are
Scott Bradner and maybe Dave Crocker.  I think one should at
least understand that history and motivation before trying to
make changes and, as far as I know, neither of them are active
WG Chairs and hence on this list.  Second, the language used to
describe I-Ds has both IPR implications ("what is an 'IETF
document'" and  the use of I-D posting as a mechanism for
requiring patent disclosures and securing RFC 5378 releases) and
potentially other implications for the non-IETF RFC publication
streams.  It seems unwise to me to contemplate making those
changes without an early opportunity for those groups to
evaluate probable consequences.

     john




>    Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of
> six months
>    and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other
> documents at any
>    time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as
> reference
>    material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
> 
> Lars