Subject: An Internet Draft as reference material

From: "Lee, Jiwoong" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 14:34:00 +0900

Dear all

What do you think about "de facto" that many technical documents
are currently using Internet Drafts as referece material?

I've seen next two cases:
1. An Internet Draft refers to another Internet Draft.
2. A book refers to another Internet Draft.

I'm not sure of the next case. Any body observed this?
3. An RFC refers to an Internet Draft.

Hereby I'd like to ask your opinion, esp. on no.1
Is it legitimate?

Cheers,

Jiwoong Lee
KT M.com

---

From: "Martin J. Duerst" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 16:31:23 +0900

>Hereby I'd like to ask your opinion, esp. on no.1

no. 1 is really needed. There is no problem with it,
you just include '(work in progress)' in the citation.

Regards,   Martin.

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 14:30:13 +0200

>1. An Internet Draft refers to another Internet Draft.

Common. It means that if the reference is normative, the I-D cannot be 
published as an RFC before the other.
If both refer normatively to each other, they must be published at the same 
time.
(If the reference is not normative, the draft name is replaced by "work in 
progress" when the RFC is published. Then, sometimes, the draft is lost...)

>2. A book refers to another Internet Draft.

Stupid, but nothing the IETF can do about it.
In electronic books, the Right Thing would be to include all drafts cited 
as appendixes; in paper books, this might add too much to printing costs.

>3. An RFC refers to an Internet Draft.

Never (except as "work in progress", as noted above - and then the draft is 
not mentioned by filename).
--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, [email-masked]
+47 41 44 29 94
Personal email: [email-masked]

---

From: "Tim Moors" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 08:32:24 -0400

In academic circles, references have several purposes:
*	To give credit to the originators of an idea.
*	For referral: To point toward sources that substantiate a claim.  To
point toward further information that elaborates on an idea.
*	For citation purposes, to see who has developed on the ideas of an
existing paper.

I think that references to drafts are useful (even inevitable) for the
purpose of giving credit for ideas.  References to drafts as sources of
further information may be less useful because of the ephemeral nature of
drafts.

Tim

---

From: Magnus Danielson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 15:27:30 +0200

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: An Internet Draft as reference material
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 14:30:13 +0200

> as appendixes; in paper books, this might add too much to printing costs.

For most of the time it is just plain stupid, however, there are material wich
is published in ID form but later down the line is being dropped but still form
the fundament for design decissions made in IDs making it all the way to RFCs.
Now, if you are going to write a book and want to discuss this backdrop and
give a fuller picture then you will have to refer to these IDs. This is really
a problem which the IETF has aswell, since this material is not available it is
not as easy for a newcommer to get the full picture as those involved in the
process has. For instance IPv6 has this problem. When you are in the process,
you should feel that it is the Right Thing to drop this old material, but the
question is if it is really the Right Thing in the long run. Some of these IDs
should really be considered as being published as Informational RFCs for the
purpose of giving the background material.

> not mentioned by filename).

This is a case where having this old background material could be valuble to
have.

Note, certainly will not all IDs be of interest, but some of them do represent
knowledge which should be considered worthy of keeping.

IMHO this is a problem, but it is not apparent for everyone being "in" the
process, but some is aware of this...

Cheers,
Magnus

---

From: Grenville Armitage <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 06:33:42 -0700

"Lee, Jiwoong" wrote:
	[..]
> 2. A book refers to another Internet Draft.

Books will cite material either for attribution (it is
important to many people to acknowledge the originators of
a technical idea or proposal) and/or for followup
reading. I-Ds are referenced in books to provide attribution,
and indirectly provide a title or filename upon which
readers can perform a websearch later (to see if the I-D
became an RFC or happens to be archived somewhere on the
net).

cheers,
gja

---

From: Masataka Ohta <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 22:35:21 +0859 ()

Harald;

> Stupid, but nothing the IETF can do about it.

If you say it stupid (regardless of whether IDs are cited as work in
progress, or not), those who are publishing RFCs citing IDs (regardless
of whether IDs are cited as work in progress, or not) are stupid.

Actually, it is not stupid. Instead, it is stupid if ID editors were not
responsible for keeping records of expired IDs.

If is wise if all the expired IDs are put under:

	ftp:ftp.ietf.org/expired-internet-drafts/

or somewhere else.

							Masataka Ohta

---

From: Jon Crowcroft <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 15:06:41 +0100

In message <[email-masked]>, Magnus Danielson typed:

 >>the fundament for design decissions made in IDs making it all the way to RFC.

very good point - one of the marvellus thing about the older RFCs is
that they typically DO still inlude the discussio nthat led to the
design choices expressed - in recent years, we have tended to move
more towards the ieee/itu/iso in anonymising work, and in removing discussion
of the alternates and reasons  for not using them from final versions
of RFCs...this is a big mistake.

 >>purpose of giving the background material.

agree completely....

 >>process, but some is aware of this...

of course, just coz a book is printed doesnt mean it can't be
obsoleted too (c.f. the old testament :-) arggggggg, no.....i mean 
2nd editions can fix typos in earlier ones is all, not darwin versus
creation....

 cheers

   jon