Subject: Re: RFC Editor RFP Review Request

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 20:27:14 +0200

Hi,

on 2006-07-18 17:24 IETF Administrative Director said the following:
> The IAOC intends to issue an RFP for the RFC Editor function no later than 31
> July 2006.  To that end we seek your review and comments to the draft RFP.

I just thought of and checked up one particular issue in the SOW in
Appendix 1 of the RFP, regarding the handling of document sources.

I found that currently, the SOW doesn't require the sources to be publicly
available at all, and availability of the published document is only assured
through a search interface.  The availability of RFCs in a mirrorable form
(by ftp or rsync) is not covered, it seems.

Should we require that the current availability through rsync and ftp
is continued?

If yes, should we also add a requirement for rsync and ftp availability
of the document sources?

Regards,

	Henrik

--------
Details excerpted from the SOW:

Section 3 subsection a of the SOW says:

  a. Indexing: Maintenance of the Catalog
    ...
    5) Provide the permanent archive of any source documents associated
       with a published specification
    ...

and Section 3 subsection c of the same SOW says:

  c. Access to Published Documents
    1) Provide search tools for finding published documents and relevant
       meta information associated with a published document such as,
       category of document, type of standard (if standards track),
       obsoleted by or updated by information, and associated errata
    2) Integrate search tools with the IETF search tools

while Section 4 only seems to cover online access to status and statistics
information:

  4. Communication of relevant RFC and processing information online

  The RFC Editor shall maintain a website with the following information:
  a. Publication Status Tracking
     ...
  b. Providing Publication Statistics and Status Reports
     ...

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---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 13:31:08 -0700

>Should we require that the current availability through rsync and ftp

Maybe I'm being a bit pedantic here, but there is no RFC (or even 
Internet Draft) describing rsync. Of course, running an rsync server 
is trivial and certainly useful to the IETF community, but maybe we 
shouldn't be mandating a protocol we haven't even started to 
standardize.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 23:53:12 +0200

Hi Paul,

> shouldn't be mandating a protocol we haven't even started to 

I'm sorry, but in this case I think pragmatism beats purity.  It
really doesn't matter a whit to me in this case that rsync hasn't been
standardized in the IETF -- it's a good tool, and the functionality is
desirable.

I guess that in this case, I don't understand your attitude.  Should we
barter away good current functionality because there's not an RFC for
rsync?

Should we require all the bright ideas and application protocols in the
world to be funnelled through the IETF?

	Henrik

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 15:02:09 -0700

At 11:53 PM +0200 7/18/06, Henrik Levkowetz wrote:
>I guess that in this case, I don't understand your attitude.

I think you missed the part about "certainly useful to the IETF community".

>   Should we

Nope. I would hope that the RFC Editor would have an rsync server 
available. But that's different than mandating one when we can't 
really say what an rsync server is at any particular point in time 
(the protocol has changed over time).

>world to be funnelled through the IETF?

Of course not, and I didn't say anything like that. Given that a fair 
amount of my bandwidth usage goes to rsync and BitTorrent, I would 
never want any such thing.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Geoff Huston <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 07:53:36 +1000

At 06:31 AM 19/07/2006, Paul Hoffman wrote:
>Maybe I'm being a bit pedantic here, but there is no RFC (or even Internet 
>Draft) describing rsync. Of course, running an rsync server is trivial and 
>certainly useful to the IETF community, but maybe we shouldn't be 
>mandating a protocol we haven't even started to standardize.

Isn't this an instance of "not invented here" ?

If rsync does the job, then use it!

    Geoff

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 15:28:00 -0700

At 12:14 AM +0200 7/19/06, Henrik Levkowetz wrote:
>\>>   Should we
>I think that in a contractual situation, 'hope' isn't enough to keep us
>out of trouble.

Good point.

>And I'd be reasonably happy if we specified 'any version of rsync greater
>than X.Y.Z', or some such.  The current debian stable version (2.6.4-6)
>would work for me.

Saying "rsync version 2.6 or later" works for me, as long as we 
understand the "can't eat our own dogfood" aspect of this requirement.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 00:31:31 +0200

Hi Paul,

> understand the "can't eat our own dogfood" aspect of this requirement.

Works for me.

	Henrik

---

From: Scott Kitterman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 18:45:23 -0400

> understand the "can't eat our own dogfood" aspect of this requirement.
But isn't that equally true of having a web site?

Scott K

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 00:14:28 +0200

Hi Paul,

on 2006-07-19 00:02 Paul Hoffman said the following:
...
...
> I think you missed the part about "certainly useful to the IETF community".

Hmm.  I saw it, but didn't see that it seemed to influence your
preferred resolution.

> never want any such thing.

Ok, that's fair.

Regards,

	Henrik

---

From: IETF Administrative Director <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 11:24:55 -0400

The draft RFP is in .doc and .pdf formats and can be found at
http://koi.uoregon.edu/~iaoc/ .

Comments should be submitted by 25 July to ensure consideration.

The 24 page draft RFP contains the following elements:

Section I General Procedural Information 
Section II Specifications
Section III Statement of Work
Section IV Service Levels
Section V Proposal Format
Section VI Selection          
Section VII Other Terms and Conditions: IPR
Section VIII Contractor Checklist
Section IX Signature Page

Appendices
Appendix 1 Statement of Work
Appendix 2 Offeror's Affidavit   

Your comments have been of enormous assistance in the past.
Thanks

Ray Pelletier
IETF Administrative Director

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 18:00:50 -0700

Ahahahahahahaha - its the worst contract solicitation I have ever seen...

Todd Glassey