Subject: [rfc-i] Paper as an archival format for RFCs

From: "Heather Flanagan (RFC Series Editor)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2017 15:04:29 -0800

Hello all,

I've heard feedback both for and against printing RFCs to paper, and
discussed this further with the RSOC. Most of the comments in support
focus on the expectation of low financial costs to print.  The cost
considerations that people have mentioned, however, do not take into
account the potential cost of recovery in such a situation where we
would need to restore the entire body of work from paper copies. The
cost of restoration from paper is likely to be a much higher cost--with
that cost increasing with every RFC published--whereas the likelihood of
being in a situation where such a wholesale recovery is necessary is
vanishingly small. The rough consensus from the RSOC is that the value
of printing does not match the costs involved.

Unlike many years ago when additional digital archives did not exist and
we did in fact have to rely on paper, we now have additional
repositories around the world, including formal archive partnerships
like the agreement with the National Library of Sweden, to informal
repositories like the copies many IETF-ers keep on their servers,
desktops, and laptops.

So, while some consider printing RFCs an inexpensive type of insurance,
looking at this from a perspective of risk management, printing RFCs for
archival purposes no longer makes sense. The full costs of both the
printing and the recovery are high. The likelihood of needing this type
of information repository in the future is low. We have a much wider
range of partnerships with others maintaining full copies of the RFC
repository than ever before. We will do better putting time and
resources towards managing our digital assets properly and editing
documents rather than handling paper.

Thank you for your feedback,

Heather Flanagan

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From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 16 Feb 2017 04:16:41 -0000

In article <[email-masked]> you write:
> The cost
>would need to restore the entire body of work from paper copies.

I get the impression that there are some radically incompatible
impressions of what paper copies would be for.  Since it was my
suggestion in the first place, here's some scenarios.

Making and archiving paper copies is not intended to be a huge effort.
Once or twice a year you print two copies of the XML and a page
formatted version of recent RFCs on archival paper with stable toner
or ink, and mail them to two libraries that are physically far apart,
perhaps Stanford in California and the Deutsches Museum in Munich,
where they file them away in boxes as they do with their other
collections of "papers of donor X."  It would be nice if someone were
to OCR a few sheets of the printouts as they arrive, just to make sure
they weren't totally botched, but I wouldn't think that would cost
much, and as likely as not the libraries would do it for us.

There are a lot of scenarios short of complete disaster where a paper
archive could be useful.  Perhaps, digital archivists have carefully
copied and recopied everything periodically to ever more modern media
to keep them readable.  At some point they discover that the XML file
for RFC 15,432 contains the XML for RFC 15,431 (two obscure and
obsolete RFCs, which is why it took so long to notice), and since the
files were confused three generations ago, the digital versions of
15,432 are unrecoverable.

Or the archivists are surprised to discover that their copies of RFC
16,824 don't match, apparently because someone there were two forks in
github and the version numbers don't match the dates and are out of
sequence.  A peek at the paper would help figure out which was the
right one.

As far as recovering everything from scratch, I agree that the chances
of needing to do that while there is still a budget for the RFC Editor
are remote.  But if we look ahead a few years, the IETF was disbanded
in 2066 because they'd still never figured out how to make IPv6 IoT
stuff secure, and everyone had moved on to GGDR* anyway.  The Internet
Society disbanded shortly afterwards, since it had been on autopilot
for a decade, and the revenue from the remaining 12,000 registrants in
.ORG couldn't even pay for a part time director.  So there is nobody
and no budget to keep copying the bits, and they rot.  Now it is 2116,
and a grad student is working on the history of networking in the
early 21st century.  The digital archives are all dead, but I'd think
that there's a pretty good chance that at least one set of the file
boxes of paper is still readable, and in that era, the implants in
her eyeballs can OCR them as fast as she can turn the pages.

So that's why, even with no budget for recovery from paper, it makes
sense.  Please reconsider.

R's,
John

* - Great Grand Daughter of RINA