Subject: RE: Image attachments to ASCII RFCs (was: Re: Last Call: 'Proposed Experiment: Normative Format in Addition to ASCII Text' to Experimental RFC (draft-ash-alt-formats))

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 07:20:57 -0700

> From: Iljitsch van Beijnum [mailto:[email-masked]] 

> It's not _that_ bizarre. Suppose that we decide to allow 
> publishing RFCs in PDF only. Suppose that within the next few 
> years some company comes up with a replacement for PDF that 
> is better is some important regard so that everyone switches 
> to the new format.

And suppose some Vogons came along and demolished the planet to make way for a hyperspace bypass.

The idea that any of the formats being discussed will become impossible to read is silly. There are billions of HTML document and hundreds of millions of PDFs

The folk at Google, the US Government and pretty much every online library project are each going to make sure nothing of the kind happens for far more obscure formats.

The output of the IETF is simply not that critical for this level of concern to be warranted. RFCs are exactly that, requests for comment. The real standards are and will always be set by running code.

Without continued maintenance the value of standards is quickly lost in any case. RFC 822 has long since ceased to be the Internet email standard, it is of historic interest only. The same is close to being the case for RFC 2822 as well. 

The underlying fallacy here is that the documents are holy scriptures, they are not, they are merely an engineering tool to effect an engineering outcome. 

Talk about what may happen in fifty or a hundred years time is simply an ego trip. Its like those folk who in the dotcom boom took out million dollar key man insurance. It had nothing to do with the damage that might be done to the company if they died unexpectedly it was a pure ego trip from start to finish. 

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From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 17:34:48 +0200

> make way for a hyperspace bypass.

There is a slight difference here: the earth hasn't seen any  
successful demolishion attempts in the last 4.5 billion years, while  
nearly any word processing document format from the 1990s can't be  
read properly. In many cases the text itself can be retrieved but  
there is almost always loss of some or even all formatting. I gather  
that the current version of Word can't read documents made by all  
previous versions of itself successfully.

> The idea that any of the formats being discussed will become  
> impossible to read is silly. There are billions of HTML document  
> and hundreds of millions of PDFs

Of course it will not be impossible to read. But there is a big  
difference between being able to have copies of all published RFCs on  
local storage (another issue with PDF: the files are many orders of  
magnitude larger) that are  searchable with widely available tools  
and having to enlist specialist help to extract the desired information.

I'm convinced that the success of the TCP/IP and web families of  
standards has a great deal to do with the fact that the standards  
documents involved are freely and easily available.

> The output of the IETF is simply not that critical for this level  
> of concern to be warranted. RFCs are exactly that, requests for  
> comment.

Go ask the people at the company you work for how important they  
think their GTLD servers are, and how critical RFCs 791, 768 and 1035  
(to name a few old ones) are for their continued operation.

> The real standards are and will always be set by running code.

This is so absurd that I don't even know what to say.

> Without continued maintenance the value of standards is quickly  
> lost in any case. RFC 822 has long since ceased to be the Internet  
> email standard, it is of historic interest only. The same is close  
> to being the case for RFC 2822 as well.

That's nice. But I doubt you're going to be able to read that email  
message exchanged through the latest version of the SMTP protocol  
without some support for RFC 894 along the way.

> The underlying fallacy here is that the documents are holy  
> scriptures, they are not, they are merely an engineering tool to  
> effect an engineering outcome.

> Talk about what may happen in fifty or a hundred years time is  
> simply an ego trip. Its like those folk who in the dotcom boom took  
> out million dollar key man insurance. It had nothing to do with the  
> damage that might be done to the company if they died unexpectedly  
> it was a pure ego trip from start to finish.

It's the other way around. Time and time again, when an engineer  
thought "well, by that time surely the system will be replaced" this  
turned out to be a mistake. Is Y2K really that long ago that we don't  
remember that lesson?

By the way: I happened to see a documentary on sky scrapers on the  
BBC the other night. I was surprised to see that the Woolworth  
building in New York (built in 1913) still has the original elevator  
machinary in operation. It would suck to have to replace a bunch of  
elevators because you don't have the documentation to prove that  
they're still up to code...

---

From: Peter Dambier <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 18:45:38 +0200

Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
> There is a slight difference here: the earth hasn't seen any  successful 
> demolishion attempts in the last 4.5 billion years, while  nearly any 
> word processing document format from the 1990s can't be  read properly. 

That is true. I remember too very well the battle between Word, Winword
and Wordstar. It was vi who finally won. Vi is compatible with edlin and ed.

And then the virus terror. Attachments to email, word-files and pdf-files
were prohibited because of virus and trojan threats.

> In many cases the text itself can be retrieved but  there is almost 
> always loss of some or even all formatting. I gather  that the current 
> version of Word can't read documents made by all  previous versions of 
> itself successfully.
> 
>> impossible to read is silly. There are billions of HTML document  and 
>> hundreds of millions of PDFs
> 

I can read some PDFs on one of my linux boxes. Many PDFs complain and
coredump. The other boxes can display ASCII only because they cannot
run X.

> magnitude larger) that are  searchable with widely available tools  and 
> having to enlist specialist help to extract the desired information.
> 
>> The output of the IETF is simply not that critical for this level  of 
>> concern to be warranted. RFCs are exactly that, requests for  comment.

Yes that is true, the IETF was not asked about lanmanager and netbios.
That is 99% of all local network traffic and it cannot even access the
internet. (In case you dont believe it, look for the broadcast packets)

> 
> 
> Go ask the people at the company you work for how important they  think 
> their GTLD servers are, and how critical RFCs 791, 768 and 1035  (to 
> name a few old ones) are for their continued operation.
> 

All machines I am running BIND 9.4.0a6 on, cannot view PDFs. I guess
BIND is a standard and 9.4.0a6 is very state of the art.

And Karins washing machine and the refrigerateur cannot read PDFs
either also they are IPv6 enabled :)

> This is so absurd that I don't even know what to say.
agreed.

> 
>> Without continued maintenance the value of standards is quickly  lost 
>> in any case. RFC 822 has long since ceased to be the Internet  email 
>> standard, it is of historic interest only. The same is close  to being 
>> the case for RFC 2822 as well.
> 

In emails there is only one standard PLAIN ASCII, NO ATTACHMENTS
or the virus killer will eat it.

Except you are working for nintendo or a spammer.

> without some support for RFC 894 along the way.

Interestingly enough, I have just seen a little unicode example.
I could not see the graphics, but when my email was replyed it
became almost visible.

>> effect an engineering outcome.

They are holy scriptures or there would be not internet.

There would be lot of isolated LANs, some interconnected others not,
depending on the manufacturer.

> 
>> Talk about what may happen in fifty or a hundred years time is  simply 
>> an ego trip. Its like those folk who in the dotcom boom took  out 
>> million dollar key man insurance. It had nothing to do with the  
>> damage that might be done to the company if they died unexpectedly  it 
>> was a pure ego trip from start to finish.
> 

I remember what my boss told me in the 1970th when he tried to read a
word document with wordstar. He was right. Nobody can read those
documents today, not on the apple nor on windows.

The wordstar is still a pain in - you know where. But I can still
read them and clean them with vi.

That is only some 30 years. The documents are still of interest.
Today they are plain EBCDIC and on punched cards.
We have them plain ASCII and on papertape too.
Of course we have them on CDROM but we dont have them on PDF.

> By the way: I happened to see a documentary on sky scrapers on the  BBC 
> the other night. I was surprised to see that the Woolworth  building in 
> New York (built in 1913) still has the original elevator  machinary in 
> operation. It would suck to have to replace a bunch of  elevators 
> because you don't have the documentation to prove that  they're still up 
> to code...
> 

The voyager spacecrafts were launched 1977. They are still alive and they
are the only spacecrafts we have out there. There wont be any others the
next 29 years. It would be a shame if we could not read the documentation
today. There are still programmers working on the software to capture the
data comming in. If those documents where in ... No, I dont think word
existed at that time. That is why the documentation was EBCDIC and
punched cards :)

-- 
Peter and Karin Dambier
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