Subject: Re: archives (was The other parts of the report....

From: [email-masked] (scott bradner)
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 15:21:49 -0400 (EDT)

Bob sez:
> On the other hand, the expiration does (should) limit
> the ability to reference I-Ds as if they really existed. 

my experience is far more "should" than "does"

as an editor I'm getting more and more manuscripts that refer to
IDs by file name (I ask that the references be changed but ...) and
I'm seeing more and more such references in publications all the time

> in real academic publishing, as well
> as in IETF documents 10 years later, then the referenced documents MUST
> be archival. 

that would be nice but the growing number of URLs in such documents
seems to be a sad fact of life (inlcuding in court decisions!)

> Are you, or are you not, suggesting
> that I-Ds should become archival in this very important sense?

this is a hard question (I know, that is why you asked it)
clearly, making an archive of old IDs available on the IETF web site
would encourage people to see them as archive but I'm not sure
how much more encouragement that is over today's reality - there are
also much technology that is only available in expired IDs (and many
lessons on what not to do could be learned by seeing what did not 
make it through to the final RFC)

The reasons I'd like to see an offical archive are:
 1/ to make IPR prior art searches a little bit easier (at least the
    archive would be in an easy to find place)

 2/ make it easier for the IETF to respond to discovery requests 
    we could get some of the way there by just having the 
    archive maintained "in the normal course of business" but not
    made public but if the material is actually public then 
    we do not have to do anthing more than saying "look on
    our offical site" for that info and we do not need to
    produce the bits directly to the lawyers (responding to
    the discovery demands in the cases where I was involved 
    took quite a bit of work at Foretec - they did it and did 
    it well but it took them away from doing other things - and
    I do not expect that the IETF will stop getting requests
    in the future.

 3/ these documents are part of the intellectual history of the IETF
    and its sad that we are hiding that

the question of creating an assumption of archiveless is a byproduct
of the above is a real question and I do not know the answer

Scott

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From: "Christian Huitema" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 13:58:23 -0700

> fwiw - the proposal from a few years ago was
> 	1/ have a directory called "expired_IDs"
> 	2/ move IDs from the normal ID directory to this
> 	   new one when they "expire," are replaced with an
> 	   updated version, or when the document is published as a RFC
> 	3/ when a ID was put in the new directory a new page
> 	   would be automatically prepended to the ID
> 	   the page would say something like
> 		           "EXPIRED INTERNET DRAFT
> 		This document may have been replaced or updated
> 		since it was published - please see (URL) for
> 		current IETF documents"
> 	   maybe centered on the page so it could not be missed

What about successive versions of the same draft? They do not
technically expire, but the practice is currently to only store the last
version. Yet, there is historical value in comparing the successive
versions.

-- Christian Huitema

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From: [email-masked] (scott bradner)
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 17:01:43 -0400 (EDT)

Christian asks:
  What about successive versions of the same draft?

yes, successive versions would be retained - that is what I refered to
in bullet 2

>          new one when they "expire," are replaced with an
                                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>          updated version, or when the document is published as a RFC
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

see Geoff's web site (URL posted earlier) for an example of
how useful old versions can be

Scott

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From: [email-masked] (scott bradner)
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 21:23:26 -0400 (EDT)

not to prolong this not-related-to-the-reorg-topic too much longer
but fwiw - I think that the IETF is well within its rights when it
publishes the proceedings that include now-expired IDs and would be 
well within its rights to publish expired IDs in a public archive

from RFC 2026 (October 1996)

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
   on his own behalf, on behalf of the organization (if any) he
   represents and on behalf of the owners of any propriety rights in the
   contribution..  Where a submission identifies contributors in
   addition to the contributor(s) who provide the actual submission, the
   actual submitter(s) represent that each other named contributor was
   made aware of and agreed to accept the same terms and conditions on
   his own behalf, on behalf of any organization he may represent and
   any known owner of any proprietary rights in the contribution.

   l. Some works (e.g. works of the U.S. Government) are not subject to
      copyright.  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.

note that this is not ansering the question of SHOULD the IETF do so
just the question of MAY the IETF do so

Scott

appendix A
simular language appears in the previous version of the IETF 
standards process

RFC 1602 (March 1994)
      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:

         l.   Contributor agrees to grant, and does grant to ISOC, a
              perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free, world-wide right
              and license under any copyrights in the contribution to
              reproduce, distribute, perform or display publicly and
              prepare derivative works that are based on or incorporate
              all or part of the contribution, and to reproduce,
              distribute and perform or display publicly any such
              derivative works, in any form and in all languages, and to
              authorize others to do so.