Subject: RE: XML2RFC submission (was Re: ASCII art)

From: "Wijnen, Bert (Bert)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 15:49:22 +0100

> > - Making XML-RFC versions of existing or new RFCs available 
> >   to the public.
> 
> absolutely!
> 
I see support of this a few times (and that includes me).
I think that if you (we) all really mean this, 
then I think it would be good to see if you can get it accepted
as an IETF (consensus) requirement in the TECHSPEC mailing list:

   [email-masked]

Otherwise, I suspect it will not happen for a long time!

> The RFC Editors actually have source versions of most existing RFCs,
> either as nroff or xml. They're just not easily accessible; 
> you have to ask to get a specific copy. I've always been surprised
> that they haven't been accessible right next to the .txt files.
> 

Let me repeat, that as far as I know, the RFC editor does NOT have
.xml versions of the FINAL RFC. They always end up generating .nroff
files and do some tailoring/editing to the .nroff before the final
RFC gets produced (from .nroff). See also my earlier posting.
I personally think that is unacceptable... but that is just that,
my personal opinion. If we (IETF) want it changed, then we
better express the need/requirement in the techspec activity as
I said above.

Bert
> 	Tony Hansen
> 	[email-masked]

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---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 10:53:26 -0500

In message <[email-masked]
om>, "Wijnen, Bert (Bert)" writes:

>RFC gets produced (from .nroff). 

I'd sure like to see some comments from the RFC editor on what they'd 
like, and what it would mean to them if everything came in in XML.

I've written all of my RFCs in nroff, though I've been contemplating 
switching to XML.  If we adopt some new format, though, I think we 
really need the ability to generate diffs of different versions of the 
same document.  Today, I use wdiff; the RFC editor also uses wdiff 
during the auth48 period.  I've never seen a pdfdiff; we might want a 
tool that takes two XML input documents and generates a diff.XML file
that, when rendered, shows something like wdiff produces today.

		--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

---

From: Bill Fenner <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 09:17:58 -0800

On 11/24/05, Steven M. Bellovin <[email-masked]> wrote:
> If we adopt some new format, though, I think we
> same document.

The solution that comes to mind for diffs is to format the old version
(to text), format the new version, and use the existing tools
(htmlwdiff, rfcdiff, or others).  There's no sensible way to do a diff
of a graphic so I think diffing the text form is sensible.

If it's to be the input of wdiff, it's be feasible to create an XSL
transform that generates text (it's tough to wrap to 72 columns and
add headers and footers in XSL, but wdiff would (might) make that
unimportant), so that diff generation isn't reliant on an installed
xml2rfc.  I have a transform that I wrote when I was first learning
xsl that translates to nroff -- not particularly useful in this
context but a proof of concept for going to some textual form.

(FOP's txt renderer looks attractive, except that it gets the spacing
wrong - I just tried it with Julian's FO scripts and got

                     The three-stageIETF standardizationprocessisdescribed inBCP
  9,RFC  2026  [RFC2026].  Inbrief,thethree
                     stagesofInternetstandardizationareProposed (which requiresa
 wellwritten,openly reviewed specification),
                     Draft(which requiresProposed status,multipleimplementations
 and some operationalexperience),and full
                     InterneStandard (which requiresDraft statuand more  extensi
veoperationalexperience).Historically,
                     increasedrequirements,originallydocumented  inRFC  1264  [R
FC1264], have been appliedto protocols
                     produced withinthe Routing Area.
)

  Bill

---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 12:38:22 -0500

In message <[email-masked]>, Bill 
>of a graphic so I think diffing the text form is sensible.

That's certainly one reasonable approach.  My concern was if we decided 
that PDF was the right way to publish RFCs -- we'd have no easy way to 
do diffs, since some people would use XML, some Word, some OpenOffice, 
etc.

Put another way, I'm primarily stating a requirement.

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 10:56:57 -0800

Steven M. Bellovin <smb at cs dot columbia dot edu> wrote:

> That's certainly one reasonable approach.  My concern was if we
> decided that PDF was the right way to publish RFCs -- we'd have no
> easy way to do diffs, since some people would use XML, some Word,
> some OpenOffice, etc.
>

Adobe Acrobat can do three different types of diffs between PDF 
documents.

Yes, yes, I know Acrobat is proprietary (and expensive), and I'm not at 
all suggesting it be required equipment for the IETF or RFC authors. 
But if Acrobat can do it, maybe some freely available software will be 
able to do the same in the future.

--
Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California, USA
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/