Subject: Re: An Internet Draft as reference material

From: Bob Braden <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 21:08:50 GMT

*> I would have to agree with a number of other people who have replied 
  *> to this email.  There does need to be an archive of I-Ds.   There are 
  *> many I-Ds that were written several years ago that are still 
  *> referenced often and pointed at.  I am thinking of several in the 
  *> areas of addressing and routing that while they never lead to 
  *> standards and some never were intended to provide a good piece of 
  *> background or analysis of problems we have faced and the thinking 
  *> that went into them. 

If they are worth keeping, they are worth publishing as RFCs.

  *> (Often the answer isn't enough, new issues may 
  *> require re-visiting why we went where we did.  For example, recently 
  *> I wanted to find the old arguments from the ROAD process about how 
  *> many addresses we need.  It was very difficult to find.  There are 
  *> many similar examples.)
  *> 
  *> I-Ds are for the most part contributions to the process of creating a 
  *> standard.  It would be inappropriate for most of them to be made even 
  *> Informational RFCs.  While it may be worthwhile to retire I-Ds as 

If they are not worth keeping, they are not worth keeping.

Bob Braden

  *> active for a group's consideration after 6 months, it would be good 
  *> if they were kept.  (Actually, I am surprised they are not. Generally 
  *> they are kept as part of the paper trail in case some should sue that 
  *> they were not given due consideration.  One can go to the paper trail 
  *> to show that due consideration was given.  The email archive is one 
  *> part of that but without the I-Ds they talk about it might not be 
  *> sufficient.)
  *> 
  *> But overall, I believe that these are valuable to keep for historical 
  *> reasons at the very least.  I have seen too many cases where people 
  *> writing books have made up the history because it seemed reasonable 
  *> rather than go dig through the sources.  It will be even worse if the 
  *> sources don't exist.  (Then some day in the future someone will 
  *> decide that we did this because there was something to hide!!!!   God 
  *> forbid!)  There needs to be an I-D archive.
  *> 
  *> Frankly, the RFC space is overloaded to the point that it is very 
  *> confusing to the uninitiated as to what the documents are, standards, 
  *> some early ones are just observations, comments on documents, etc. 
  *> It would much less confusing to the outside world if an RFC were just 
  *> one thing.   Even ISO distinguishes Standards from Technical Reports, 
  *> i..e. Informational RFCs or BCPs.
  *> 
  *> Take care,
  *> John
  *> 
  *>

---

From: "Simon St.Laurent" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 17:37:24 -0400

>If they are not worth keeping, they are not worth keeping.

You seem to ignore the possibility that they could be worth keeping in a
form other than RFCs.  I don't think the world wants the RFC pool to grow
_that_ rapidly, but I think an important subset of users needs persistent
access to older drafts.

Making a 'publish it as an RFC or discard it' claim may be nice
rhetorically, but it's not a very useful answer to the problem being raised.

Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books

---

From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 08:49:33 +1100

Date:        Wed, 20 Sep 2000 17:37:24 -0400
    From:        "Simon St.Laurent" <[email-masked]>
    Message-ID:  <[email-masked]>

  | You seem to ignore the possibility that they could be worth keeping in a
  | form other than RFCs.

Why?   Or perhaps I mean, why in another form than RFCs which are RFC clones
in essentially all details (that is, I wasn't asking why someone might prefer
to also keep docs in some radically different form or medium).

  | I don't think the world wants the RFC pool to grow
  | _that_ rapidly,

You're worried about conserving RFC numbers?   Why?   If the information is
to be kept, let it be kept.

If we start keeping I-D's forever (publically available) then we will just
need to invent another doc series for draft drafts, that aren't to be
kept forever.

Perhaps the current problems are all a result of the (comparatively recent)
difficulty of getting stuff actually published as an RFC, compared to the
ease of I-D publication.  If that is the real issue, then that might be
worth discussing, but just creating more archival doc series doesn't solve
anything at all.

kre

---

From: "Simon St.Laurent" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 18:13:41 -0400

>to also keep docs in some radically different form or medium).

I think it's reasonably clear that there are legitimate referencing and
historical needs which make preserving I-Ds as I-Ds a useful idea.

>to be kept, let it be kept.

I think the status of RFCs as somewhat 'approved' and the need for people
to be able to search against that list suggests that a separate archive for
drafts might be a good idea.  

If you'd rather reach RFC 10000 in the next couple of years, we can, of
course, do that!  I think the meaning of RFC publication would get diluted
quickly, but that might be fine as well.

>need to invent another doc series for draft drafts, that aren't to be

'Another doc series'?  Don't I-Ds already exist as a de facto doc series?
Only thing is, no one keeps them around.

To be honest, I'm not concerned who maintains the archive.  If it proves to
be a friendly third party, that's good with me.

>worth discussing, but just creating more archival doc series doesn't solve

That's not my issue - I just need to be able to reference materials in all
phases of development, without those references expiring constantly.

Simon St.Laurent

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 15:38:20 -0700 (PDT)

> If they are worth keeping, they are worth publishing as RFCs.

Would you accept: "If they are worth keeping, they are worth
publishing."  as a restatement?  I would agree with that, as an
off-line, inaccesible archive is not worth much to this community.

Publishing as an RFC, though, I would not agree with.  For reasons
having nothing to do with the stewardship of the RFC editor, RFCs have
come to be taken in ways that no longer reflect their original status
as working papers; too many people will misunderstand the intended
status of a document with that designation, no matter what words we
add to the beginning and end.

			best regards,
				Ted Hardie

---

From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 10:03:11 +1100

Date:        Wed, 20 Sep 2000 18:13:41 -0400
    From:        "Simon St.Laurent" <[email-masked]>
    Message-ID:  <[email-masked]>

  | I think the meaning of RFC publication would get diluted
  | quickly, but that might be fine as well.

The "meaning" of RFC publication is also something that has been
imported comparatively recently - they used to just be requests
for comments.

  | 'Another doc series'?  Don't I-Ds already exist as a de facto doc series?
  | Only thing is, no one keeps them around.

That's the point ... if they were kept around we would need something
else that is not kept around.   I know that I send in I-Ds (especially of
early drafts) precisely on the basis that they will be deleted, and not
kept available to the public forever.  If something is going to be
available for people to read (easily) 5 or 10 years from now, then I'm
simply not going to publish it until after it has been reviewed, and there's
been a reasonable chance for my more stupid ideas to be quietly squashed.

  | That's not my issue - I just need to be able to reference materials in all
  | phases of development, without those references expiring constantly.

How do you reference the conversations that take place in the IETF WG
meetings?   That is also part of the development process.   I-D's ought to
be being treated just like those conversations...

kre

---

From: "Simon St.Laurent" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 19:28:15 -0400

>been a reasonable chance for my more stupid ideas to be quietly squashed.

I hate to be blunt, but if you're really publishing because the documents
will be destroyed, should you really be publishing at all?

I publish trial balloons and stupid ideas all the time, and don't expect
the archivists to expunge them.  That's part of the process that goes into
creating new technologies, not something to sweep under the carpet.

>be being treated just like those conversations...

It's part of the development process, but it's not a formal document.  If
there are minutes of those conversations, I'd love to see them kept.  If
there aren't, there's no document to keep.

Simon St.Laurent

---

From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 10:49:01 +1100

Date:        Wed, 20 Sep 2000 19:28:15 -0400
    From:        "Simon St.Laurent" <[email-masked]>
    Message-ID:  <[email-masked]>

  | It's part of the development process, but it's not a formal document.

The point is that I-Ds aren't supposed to be formal documents either.
They're just electronic scribble on scap paper found lying around, and
generally intended to be discarded.   From time to time, some of that
looks to be worth keeping - and then it can be copied to a more permanent
archive, but we are still going to need the scratch pad.

kre

---

From: "Simon St.Laurent" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 19:55:34 -0400

>archive, but we are still going to need the scratch pad.

Once the scratch pad is in public view, it should stay in public view.

I think that may be where we differ - I'm happy to scribble in public and
expect other people's public scribbles to remain public.

Simon St.Laurent

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 00:53:19 +0100 (BST)

On Wed, 20 Sep 2000 [email-masked] wrote:

> For reasons

some would say that internet-drafts have already reached the same
point. And point to them being mentioned in books as evidence.

L.

<[email-masked]>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>

---

From: John Stracke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 20:25:07 -0400

> archive, but we are still going to need the scratch pad.

Why?

--
/==============================================================\
|John Stracke    | http://www.ecal.com |My opinions are my own.|
|Chief Scientist |=============================================|
|eCal Corp.      |Humpty Dumpty died for our sins.             |
[email-masked]|                                             |
\==============================================================/

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 22:13:07 -0400

> archive, but we are still going to need the scratch pad.

there's even more to it than that.

as long as internet-drafts don't stay around forever, there's
less pressure on IETF to exercise editorial control over them.  
that means that there's a low overhead associated with 
getting I-Ds published and getting the ideas out for review.
(some claim that it's already too high )
 
but if/when they do get archived, IETF will sooner or later
be expected (to the point of having a legal obligation)
to exercise control over those documents.

Keith

---

From: Stephen Kent <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 14:22:33 -0400

I want to second Bob Braden's pithy observation re I-Ds.  If they 
make it through the process and become RFCs (including informational 
RFCs) then they clearly merit retention and they achieve it, since 
RFcs are archival. However, many I-Ds do not make it through the 
process and to archive them may seem to elevate them to a status that 
they have not merited.  I don't mean to suggest that these documents 
have not value.  The next author of a book on the history of IETF 
standards would certainly find them of great value. But, I don't want 
to see them cited in some product marketing data sheet, further 
confusing folks who already are confused by the fact that all 
standards are RFCs, but not all RFCs are standards ...

Steve

---

From: Pete Loshin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 15:44:42 -0400

Stephen Kent wrote:
> RFcs are archival....

And I'll make a pithy counter-observation: if they're worth being
referenced in an RFC (as "works-in-progress") then they're worth saving.

IMO, it's not helpful to publish an RFC that points to a
"work-in-progress" as the source for explanatory or background
information about that RFC, if those documents disappear within months
of publication. It makes the RFCs less useful.

In any case, as Scott Bradner informed us, they will soon be available,
so this is officially a moot point.

>...But, I don't want

Guess what. It already happens all the time. Vendors try to hype their
latest and greatest to the press, trumpeting the fact that "it's been
submitted to the IETF, and they've already published it as an
Internet-Draft!" This has been going on for years.

Some writers and editors know the difference; others don't; usually
there's someone in the loop who knows better and can fix it before it
gets published.

-pl

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Loshin             http://www.loshin.com               |
| Internet-Standard.com   http://Internet-Standard.com        |
| The RFC Books Series    http://www.loshin.com/bigbooks.html |
| The Linux Project       http://www.thelinuxproject.com      |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

---

From: Stephen Kent <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 17:14:01 -0400

Pete,

>referenced in an RFC (as "works-in-progress") then they're worth saving.

We agree; an RFC ought not cite an I-D.

>of publication. It makes the RFCs less useful.

Right.

>Internet-Draft!" This has been going on for years.

People do bad things. We can't prevent that, but we can avoid helping 
them by giving the imprimatur of the IETF to such behavior.

Steve

---

From: Tim Salo <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 16:18:37 -0500 (CDT)

> Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 14:22:33 -0400
> From: Stephen Kent <[email-masked]>
> Subject: Re: An Internet Draft as reference material
>
> RFcs are archival.
 
See for example RFC 2549, "IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service".
I don't know if this was ever an Internet Draft, but it did make it 
through the process.

> However, many I-Ds do not make it through the
> they have not merited. ...

I don't think that quality (whatever that is in this context) is necessarily
a monotonically increasing function within the working group and Internet
Draft process.  A number of good ideas (documented in Internet Drafts) have
been dropped because of programmer whine ("That's not what I implemented",
"It's too hard", "It will take too long", ...), rather than lack of
obvious "quality".  Not all Internet Drafts that never became RFCs were
bad ideas -- some of them are good ideas that, for any number of reasons,
never made it through the process.

I think the cure (destroying old documents) is probably worse than the
problem (people referencing obviously draft or unofficial documents).

-tjs

---

From: Greg Minshall <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 14:45:02 -0700

RFCs should not be referencing I-Ds, imho.  if they *do*, then something 
slipped through the cracks, imho.  (if they do, i assume it is because during 
the RFC's pre-life as an I-D it referenced companion I-Ds and the companion 
either died some deserved death on its way to RFCdom, or the companion made it 
to RFCdom, but the citation was never updated.)

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 14:35:08 -0700

>since RFcs are archival. However, many I-Ds do not make it through the 
>process and to archive them may seem to elevate them to a status that they 
>have not merited.  I don't mean to suggest that these documents have not 
>value.  The next author of a book on the history of IETF standards would 
>certainly find them of great value. But, I don't want to see them cited in 
>some product marketing data sheet,

Rather than focus on tenuous possibilities, let's (re-)consider strong 
realites:

With inappropriate patents regularly being issued, we need to facilitate 
prior art searches.  The body of Internet Drafts is an extraordinarily rich 
source of material for networking innovation.

If the patent office staff and patent infringement defense attorneys had 
searchable access to the database of Internet Drafts, their jobs would bne 
easier and the quality of their work would improve.

d/

---

From: Stephen Kent <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 18:27:32 -0400

Tim,

The April fool's day RFCs aside, I agree that not all I-Ds that fail 
to make the cut as an RFC are inferior. However, there are many other 
venues for publishing technical material, many of which subject the 
material to review. An I-D that contains good material but fails to 
become an RFC has other ways to become archival, cite-able, etc.

Steve

---

From: RJ Atkinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 18:55:15 -0400

>of publication. It makes the RFCs less useful.

Do such RFCs actually exist ?   
Do you have a specific example ?  I don't know of any.

        I have always heard that the RFC Editor will not publish
any document as an RFC if it tries to reference an Internet-Draft.

>Internet-Draft!" This has been going on for years.

        We don't need to make the situation worse than it is.
I agree with Steve Kent and Bob Braden.  If folks don't want
an RFC, they can always put their document out as a company
Technical Report, on the web, and/or via many other methods.

Ran
[email-masked]

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 16:23:21 -0700

> any document as an RFC if it tries to reference an Internet-Draft.
                                       ^ normatively

---

From: Pete Loshin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 19:33:05 -0400

> Do you have a specific example ?  I don't know of any.

The last RFC I looked at, RFC 2917, has two (of four) references to
"work in progress". No, they don't reference specific I-Ds, but we all
know that "work in progress" is a code word for "some Internet-Draft"
and we all probably have no serious problem tracking down that "work in
progress" provided it hasn't expired.

I checked a few others, as well (don't recall exactly whichbut all from
the past couple of years) but about every other one had at least one
(and sometimes quite a few) references to "work in progress".

> any document as an RFC if it tries to reference an Internet-Draft.

You can call an Internet-Draft a "work in progress" but it's still an
Internet-Draft. Calling it a "work in progress" just makes it that much
more work to track down.

>         We don't need to make the situation worse than it is.

Why would it be worse than it is? Because marketing people would be able
to point to an I-D that's more than half a year old?

An Internet-Draft that doesn't expire is much more useful to a lot of
people than one that disappears after 6 months. But not to marketing
people, who don't generally have such long attention spans, and are more
than likely working for another company by then.

-pl

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 07:59:12 -0400

>any document as an RFC if it tries to reference an Internet-Draft.

RFC 2095:

    [KEYED-MD5] Krawczyk, H., "HMAC-MD5: Keyed-MD5 for Message
        Authentication", Work in Progess.

This particular reference caused the issuing of RFC 2195, which has
the reference corrected:

    [KEYED-MD5] Krawczyk, Bellare, Canetti, "HMAC: Keyed-Hashing for
        Message Authentication", RFC 2104, February 1997.

It was a mistake by the IESG and the RFC Editor to let this one through;
(ok, I was there - it's my fault....)

OTOH, RFC 2887, "The Reliable Multicast Design Space for Bulk Data 
Transfer", is a survey of things that people are thinking about. The five 
references to "work in progress" in its reference list probably do not harm 
interoperability.

My RFC store shows that there are 292 RFCs with the words "work in 
progress" in them. I don't know if all of these are in the References section.

--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, [email-masked]
+47 41 44 29 94
Personal email: [email-masked]

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 09:56:02 -0700

> progress" provided it hasn't expired.

Contrary to popular belief, this phrase predates RFCs and IDs,
and is still used by some people for exactly what it means;
any work which has not been published, but which the author
would like to attribute.

It is always inappropriate to use any such references 
for anything other than attribution.

PS - is no one else alarmed by the re-publishing of material
submitted under an explicit agreement for 'removal after 6 mos'?
I know _I_ have not been asked for such permission.

Joe

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 13:50:46 -0400

> submitted under an explicit agreement for 'removal after 6 mos'?

I also share this concern.

Keith

---

From: Eric Brunner-Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 14:34:13 -0400

> submitted under an explicit agreement for 'removal after 6 mos'?

Yes. More generally the presumption that RFC doesn't mean "Request for
Comments" and that the explicit withdrawal of the preliminary form has
been over-ridden by a claim for third-party archival persistence.

Eric

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 11:45:44 -0700

> been over-ridden by a claim for third-party archival persistence.

Interesting that anyone thinks that such claims can 
be retroactively overridden.

Joe

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 11:49:43 -0700

> I also share this concern.

as do i, though i understand the ipr motivation.

randy

---

From: Tim Salo <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 14:54:45 -0500 (CDT)

> Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 09:56:02 -0700
> From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
> 	[...]

To the contrary, I believe that you granted broad permissions when you
submitted a document as an Internet Draft.  For example, in
draft-touch-ipsec-vpn-00.txt you write:

   	[...]
   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
   all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026 except for the right to
   produce derivative works.
   	[...]

From RFC 2026, Section 10.3.1.  All Contributions:

   l. ...  However, to the extent that the submission is or may
      be subject to copyright, the contributor, the organization he
      represents (if any) and the owners of any proprietary rights in
      the contribution, grant an unlimited perpetual, non-exclusive,
      royalty-free, world-wide right and license to the ISOC and the
      IETF under any copyrights in the contribution.  This license
      includes the right to copy, publish and distribute the
      contribution in any way, and to prepare derivative works that are
      based on or incorporate all or part of the contribution, the
      license to such derivative works to be of the same scope as the
      license of the original contribution.

On a bad day, I might be inclined to ask: Am I the only one concerned about
authors "forgetting" that they have granted broad rights to the
ISOC and IETF?

-tjs

---

From: Bill Manning <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 13:28:45 -0700 (PDT)

Not all I-D carry the full ISOC copywrite. Indeed the ISOC copywrite
has not existed for that long.  Some document creators do read the 
boilerplate.  Objecting to it can and has caused some friction within
the IETF community.
Joe Touch's concerns are real. 

--bill

---

From: Greg Minshall <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 13:54:31 -0700

> ... though i understand the ipr motivation.

i'm afraid i don't.  perhaps someone could summarize?  sob?

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 18:34:54 -0400

> submitted a document as an Internet Draft.

a. not everybody uses the "anything goes" form of the boilerplate,
   nor are they required to do so.

b. some internet drafts predate that boilerplate

Keith

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 23:36:00 -0700

> >From RFC 2026, Section 10.3.1.  All Contributions:

There are many IDs (a couple of which I also wrote) which
predate that RFC which are being proposed.

It is not the archival of post-2026 IDs that is of concern,
nor the basic idea of keeping an archive. However, it seems
reasonable to expect, as copyright OWNER of the material of
those pre-2026 IDs, that we be _asked_ for permission to post.

(that goes for so-called 'community interest' archives as well)

Joe

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 00:02:00 -0700

Reading along further in the same document:

>    ... Internet Drafts that
>    have been removed (for any reason) from the Internet-Drafts
>    directories shall be archived by the IETF Secretariat for the sole
>    purpose of preserving an historical record of Internet standards
>    activity and thus are not retrievable except in special
>    circumstances.

It isn't so clear that the rights in Sec 10.3.1 supercede the 
implicit agreement in Sec. 8.

Joe

---

From: Tim Salo <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 07:34:03 -0500 (CDT)

> Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 23:36:00 -0700

From RFC 1602:

5.4.  Rights and Permissions

      In the course of standards work, ISOC receives contributions in
      various forms and from many persons.  To facilitate the wide
      dissemination of these contributions, it is necessary to establish
      specific understandings concerning any copyrights, patents, patent
      applications, or other rights in the contribution.  The procedures
      set forth in this section apply to contributions submitted after 1
      April 1994.  For Internet standards documents published before
      this date (the RFC series has been published continuously since
      April 1969), information on rights and permissions must be sought
      directly from persons claiming rights therein.

The following section of RFC 1602 contains a grant of rights to the ISOC
similar to what is contained in RFC 2026.

> (that goes for so-called 'community interest' archives as well)

Note that your claims highlight the importance of one of the major
motivations for the creation of the ISOC and the formalization of the
intellectual property rights to documents submitted to the IETF, 
namely the difficulty faced by those wishing to create compilations of
RFCs.

-tjs

---

From: Tim Salo <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 10:37:17 -0500 (CDT)

> From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
> Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 18:34:54 -0400
> 

From RFC 2026:

10.3.1.  All Contributions

   By submission of a contribution, each person actually submitting the
   contribution is deemed to agree to the following terms and conditions...

From RFC 1602:

      5.4.1.  All Contributions

         By submission of a contribution to ISOC, and in consideration
         of possible dissemination of the contribution to the Internet
         community, a contributor is deemed to agree to the following
         terms and conditions: ...

I believe that the requirement that authors include the boilerplate was
added fairly recently in response to some authors submitting documents
that explicitly stated that the author was not granting the rights
specified in RFC 1602 and RFC 2026.  I understand that only specific
exceptions to this grant of rights are currently permitted, to avoid
each author creating their own exceptions (e.g., "My document can't be
distributed on Tuesdays").  (The current discussion _may_ raise the
issue of whether any exceptions to these grants of rights should be
permitted.)

This grant of rights has been in effect since April 1, 1994.  I understand
that the function of the boilerplate is to reduce quibbling by requiring
the author to make this grant of rights explicit.

Yes, some Internet Drafts pre-date April 1, 1994, and I assume their status
is less clear.

-tjs

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 08:46:34 -0700

> namely the difficulty faced by those wishing to create compilations of

Compilations of RFCs are different from IDs. IDs were designed
to disappear; that is a condition under which they were (and are)
written. That's why RFC2026 explicitly indicates the conditions
under which ID material will be made available after the 6-mos 
limit. And why it may have a chilling effect to do otherwise.

Joe

---

From: Tim Salo <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 07:30:03 -0500 (CDT)

> Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 00:02:00 -0700

It's pretty clear to me that Section 10 specifies the intellectual
property rights that the author of a submission grants to the ISOC,
while Section 8 describes internal IETF procedures.  It's also pretty
clear to me that under Section 10 the author grants fairly broad
perpetual rights to the ISOC, and that this grant of rights is not
contingent upon the IETF promising to never change its internal
procedures.

What you appear to me to want is the right for authors to limit or
retract the [perpeual] rights granted to the ISOC under Section 10
after the fact for pretty much any reason, including changes in
internal IETF procedures.

I do not believe that the ability of authors to impose restrictions on
their grant of rights to the ISOC after the fact is in the best interest
of the IETF.  I also see no basis in RFC 2026 for such a claim.

I don't understand what your objectives are, but it seems possible that
the Internet Draft mechanism is not the most appropriate tool for that
task.

-tjs

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From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 08:59:25 -0700

> contingent upon the IETF promising to never change its internal

Unlike standards in the IETF, this is not a matter for rough consensus.

> internal IETF procedures.

Let me be more explicit then. What I want is what the 
practice/agreement/contract (implicit or otherwise)
was when I submitted, for drafts submitted at that time.

Agreements, on whatever basis, cannot be changed
retroactively in the interest of enabling patent
searches _or_ for historic preservation.

> the Internet Draft mechanism is not the most appropriate tool for that

Whether it _IS_ not the most appropriate, doesn't change
whether it _WAS_. And neither does the unilateral retroactive
alteration of an agreement.

Joe