Subject: Re: Topic drift Re: An Internet Draft as reference material

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 20:12:55 -0400

the arguments about whether IETF can legally make a long-term archive of
I-Ds largely miss the point.  

IETF might decide, after consulting its attorneys, that it can accept
the risk of getting sued by I-D authors for copyright infringement.
after all, most of us probably don't want to sue IETF even if we 
think it's doing the wrong thing here - the lawsuit would just add to
the harm being done.

IETF could also take various measures to minimize that risk.  it could
examine boilerplate in the documents to see what rights were granted.
it could request permission from I-D authors. it could publically 
announce that the archive will be available well in advance of it 
being made publically available, and give authors a chance to opt-out.
the archive would still be quite useful even if it weren't entirely
complete.

the real question, I think, is whether IETF's mission of solving
problems and promoting interoperability is helped or hurt by 
having a public Internet-Draft archive.

one one hand most of us acknowledge that patents are a real impediment 
to technological progress (at least in our field) and to the extent we
can discourage or discredit patents we are probably furthering IETF's 
mission.  

on the other hand, (and IMHO) making the I-D series permanently archived 
will discourage folks from tossing out half-baked ideas and trying to
get others to improve on them; and it will encourage folks who are just
looking for a soapbox and can't get any community support for their ideas.

Keith

---

From: Garrett Wollman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 22:33:32 -0400 (EDT)

<<On Sun, 01 Oct 2000 20:12:55 -0400, Keith Moore <[email-masked]> said:

> get others to improve on them; 

The I-D series already *is* permanently, publicly archived (just not
by the IETF).  This does not seem to have discouraged a good number of
half-baked ideas (including my own miniscule contribution).

I am fairly certain that I have seen an I-D mirror which was
configured not to ever delete or even modify a file once retrieved.
(This would be fairly trivial to do in `mirror'.)

-GAWollman

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 22:47:03 -0400

> The I-D series already *is* permanently, publicly archived

by that logic, there's no point in IETF creating its own archive.
(after all, others are doing a fine job of it at no cost to IETF, right?)

presumably folks who want this archive believe that IETF's creation 
of an archive will have some benefical effect, even given the existence
of the other archvies, otherwise there would be no point in suggesting it.
and presumably those who oppose the archive also believe it will have
a negative effect.  most of us were aware of the existence of the 
other archives. we still think that an IETF archive will make some 
difference.

Keith

---

From: Garrett Wollman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 23:00:22 -0400 (EDT)

> (after all, others are doing a fine job of it at no cost to IETF, right?)

It's the matter of being [un]able to find it that seems to be the
sticking point.  After all, there may well be a hundred copies of
`draft-foo-bar-baz-00.txt', but finding the one which actually
contains the original text remains the sticking-point.

Walnut Creek CDROM seems to be selling a disc with a three-year-old
collection of Internet-Drafts on it.  I can't tell from their catalog
listing whether this has the actual contents of the old drafts, or
merely many, many copies of the annoying message which used to be
inserted when drafts expired.  (I actually wouldn't mind finding a
copy out there of my 1995 effort -- I don't have a copy myself any
more.  There have probably been few less-well-baked drafts than mine.)

-GAWollman