Subject: About referenced documents...

From: lconroy <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 00:02:09 +0000

Hi Folks,
  in the process of re-writing the ENUM Experiences draft, I wanted  
to check that its statement on the characters that can be found in  
POSIX Extended Regular Expressions (as called up in RFC 3402) is  
correct. However, the referenced standard is an IEEE document that  
those fine chaps want money to purchase.
I had thought that the IETF didn't like normative references that  
were not available to all (without paying for them).

Am I misunderstanding the situation?

There are any number of different documents "out there" that talk  
about Regular Expressions, and in practice is it going to be hard to  
find a library that only does POSIX ERE processing, but... should we  
be referring to a standard document that is only available at a cost?
There have certainly been enough complaints about mobile standards  
(at least until the message got through that 3GPP and ITU standards  
were available at no cost).

How many such "paid only" standards are referenced in IETF documents,  
I wonder?

all the best,
   Lawrence

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---

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 18:01:17 -0800

Hi -

> From: "lconroy" <[email-masked]>
> To: "IETF Discussion" <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2007 4:02 PM
> Subject: About referenced documents...
...
> Am I misunderstanding the situation?
...

Many participants in the IETF have a preference for freely available
specifications, but nothing prohibits a normative reference to a
specification that needs to be purchased.  Factors to consider
include how widely implemented the specification in question is,
and whether that specification is clearer than or technically superior
to its "competition."

Randy

---

From: Tom Yu <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:26:02 -0400

>>>>> "lconroy" == lconroy  <[email-masked]> writes:

lconroy> Hi Folks,
lconroy>  in the process of re-writing the ENUM Experiences draft, I wanted  to
lconroy> check that its statement on the characters that can be found in  POSIX
lconroy> Extended Regular Expressions (as called up in RFC 3402) is
lconroy> correct. However, the referenced standard is an IEEE document that
lconroy> those fine chaps want money to purchase.
lconroy> I had thought that the IETF didn't like normative references that
lconroy> were not available to all (without paying for them).

I believe the POSIX standards are now combined with the Single Unix
Specification, maintained by the Open Group, which provides an HTML
version free of charge on its website.

http://www.opengroup.org/

There may be a free registration procedure required to obtain access.

---Tom

---

From: "Andrew G. Malis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:18:07 -0400

We've been referencing ITU-T specifications for a very long time, even
though until this year you had to pay for them. The key is publicly
available, not publicly free.

Cheers,
Andy

---

From: lconroy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 23:08:05 +0000

Hi Tom, folks,
  Many thanks for that. This is exactly what I wanted to know.
I understand that this is a distraction from the wider IPR crusade,
but I wonder if people should consider ensuring that our standards
refer to just this kind of open document (e.g. refer to SUS/opengroup
standards rather than the original POSIX/IEEE standards).

That, ISTM, would be a worthwhile campaign that would not require the
whole world to change - if one can't READ the specs, then it is hard
to base an implementation on more than Internet rumour and guesswork.

----

As to whether these should be available for free or just be available
- it matters to me. Most people who are active in the IETF do so because
they have support from whoever is paying them (me too). My company can
afford for me to gain access to the referenced standards as needed.
Fine.

However, Not everyone is in that position - have you seen how much
a full (non-academic) IEEE (or full ITU-T/R, or full...) sub costs?
Are we really willing to restrict those who can implement IETF
standards to those who are supported by a (well funded) company?
I hope not.

I am fed up with folk just looking at the examples given in an RFC and
assuming that these are always correct/sufficient/complete. It's dumb.
If they can't read the references specs because they can't afford them,
then it's our bad, not theirs.

...and with that, we return you to your regular scheduled IPR crusade.

all the best,
   Lawrence

On 31 Oct 2007, at 21:26, Tom Yu wrote:
> I believe the POSIX standardFrom [email-masked] Wed Oct 31 19:16:53 2007
From: lconroy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 23:08:05 +0000
To: Tom Yu <[email-masked]>, "Andrew G. Malis" <[email-masked]>
Cc: IETF Discussion <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: About referenced documents...

Hi Tom, folks,
  Many thanks for that. This is exactly what I wanted to know.
I understand that this is a distraction from the wider IPR crusade,
but I wonder if people should consider ensuring that our standards
refer to just this kind of open document (e.g. refer to SUS/opengroup
standards rather than the original POSIX/IEEE standards).

That, ISTM, would be a worthwhile campaign that would not require the
whole world to change - if one can't READ the specs, then it is hard
to base an implementation on more than Internet rumour and guesswork.

----

As to whether these should be available for free or just be available
- it matters to me. Most people who are active in the IETF do so because
they have support from whoever is paying them (me too). My company can
afford for me to gain access to the referenced standards as needed.
Fine.

However, Not everyone is in that position - have you seen how much
a full (non-academic) IEEE (or full ITU-T/R, or full...) sub costs?
Are we really willing to restrict those who can implement IETF
standards to those who are supported by a (well funded) company?
I hope not.

I am fed up with folk just looking at the examples given in an RFC and
assuming that these are always correct/sufficient/complete. It's dumb.
If they can't read the references specs because they can't afford them,
then it's our bad, not theirs.

...and with that, we return you to your regular scheduled IPR crusade.

all the best,
   Lawrence

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:42:15 +1300

> standards rather than the original POSIX/IEEE standards).

But what if the freely available document is slightly out of date
or slightly different compared to the official one? That isn't a sound
basis for a normative reference. In such a case, I would consider
a normative reference to the official (paid) standard and an informative
reference to the free one, with a warning.

    Brian

---

From: Tom Yu <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 22:03:36 -0400

>>>>> "Brian" == Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> writes:

>> standards rather than the original POSIX/IEEE standards).

Brian> But what if the freely available document is slightly out of date
Brian> or slightly different compared to the official one? That isn't a sound
Brian> basis for a normative reference. In such a case, I would consider
Brian> a normative reference to the official (paid) standard and an informative
Brian> reference to the free one, with a warning.

My understanding is that the Open Group / SUS standards are supposed
to be technically and textually identical to the IEEE 1003.x
standards, or at least, a strict superset thereof.  If someone has
evidence to the contrary, I would like to know about it.

---Tom

---

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 20:18:34 -0800

Hi -

> From: "Tom Yu" <[email-masked]>
> To: "Brian E Carpenter" <[email-masked]>
> Cc: "lconroy" <[email-masked]>; "Andrew G. Malis" <[email-masked]>; "IETF Discussion" <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 6:03 PM
...
...

Speculating...

A strict subset might be palatable.  A superset (strict or not) probably
would not, since that would entail requirements beyond those in the
intended specification. 

Randy