Subject: Abstract on Page 1?

From: Margaret Wasserman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 10:33:38 -0500

I would like to propose that we re-format Internet-Drafts such that  
the boilerplate (status and copyright) is moved to the back of the  
draft, and the abstract moves up to page 1.

I don't believe that there are any legal implications to moving our  
IPR information to the back of the document, and it would be great not  
to have to page down at the beginning of every I-D to skip over it.   
If someone wants to check the licensing details, they could look at  
the end of the document.

Margaret

---

From: Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:38:10 +0000

Margaret Wasserman wrote:
> _______________________________________________
> Ietf mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
>
Margaret

Will this break any official  or unofficial ID processing tools?

Stewart

---

From: Tim Bray <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 07:41:24 -0800

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 7:33 AM, Margaret Wasserman <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
> I would like to propose that we re-format Internet-Drafts such that the
> boilerplate (status and copyright) is moved to the back of the draft, and
> the abstract moves up to page 1.

Oh, yes please.  That would immensely increase the usability of RFCs.  -Tim

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Mar 2009 10:44:47 -0500

> draft, and the abstract moves up to page 1.

I like this suggestion a lot.

Melinda

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 10:46:47 -0500

On Mar 4, 2009, at 10:38 AM, Stewart Bryant wrote:

>> IPR information to the back of the document, and it would be great  
>> not to have to page down at the beginning of every I-D to skip over  
>> it.  If someone wants to check the licensing details, they could  
>> look at the end of the document.
>>
>> Margaret
>>

They would have to be modified. Hopefully, not just before the I-D  
deadline.

I like this idea a lot. +1 from me.

The question I have is, would this require a change to RFC 5378 ? Or  
could it just be done ?

Regards
Marshall

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:50:19 +0100

Margaret Wasserman wrote:
> boilerplate (status and copyright) is moved to the back of the draft, 
> and the abstract moves up to page 1.
> 
> I don't believe that there are any legal implications to moving our IPR 
> information to the back of the document, and it would be great not to 
> have to page down at the beginning of every I-D to skip over it.  If 
> someone wants to check the licensing details, they could look at the end 
> of the document.
> 
> Margaret

After having suffered from the latest boilerplate change turmoil (which 
is not yet finished), and the next one already announced (RFC 
boilerplate), I really have to ask: you are joking, right?

Note: Section 6 of 
<http://trustee.ietf.org/docs/IETF-Trust-Legal-Provisions-Clean-2-12-09.pdf> 
says:

"The following text must be included on the first page of each IETF 
Document as specified below:"

BR, Julian

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 10:55:34 -0500

> Document as specified below:"

Some of us may regard the requirement of standard legal boilerplate
taking precedence over technical content to be a symptom of a problem,
rather than something to be accepted quietly.  (But I have a great
deal of sympathy for the toolbuilders, and think that maybe just now
is not a good time to be making more changes.  Perhaps the next time
one is required anyway, though?)

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]
Shinkuro, Inc.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:07:00 -0800 (PST)

> Oh, yes please.  That would immensely increase the usability of RFCs.  -Tim

+1

				Ned

---

From: Margaret Wasserman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 11:37:47 -0500

> Will this break any official  or unofficial ID processing tools?

Yes, they would need to be updated.  But, I think we're due for  
another round of IPR updates once we resolve the current mess.  So,  
perhaps we could queue this improvement and do it at the same time?

Margaret

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 09:29:29 -0800

+1, after San Francisco. Let's give the volunteer tool authors some breathing space.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Rémi Després <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:08:45 +0100

Margaret,

First, a full support for your idea of having the IPR information at the 
end rather than on page 1.

For this, a practical approach could be, at least in a first phase, to 
leave the choice open, both formats being accepted (first page or end of 
document).

Then automated tools could move to the new (better) format at any 
convenient time for those who work on them.

Regards,
RD

---

From: "Livingood, Jason" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:20:42 -0500

+1 - great idea.

---

From: TSG <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:05:13 -0800

> On 3/4/09 10:33 AM, "Margaret Wasserman" <[email-masked]> wrote:
Then the template has to be changed. Will the IETF still continue to 
accept documents formatted the old way or will it mandate this change 
everywhere - and gee - that could be our own little stimulus package - 
we may have to hire someone to move the (c) in all of the existing 
documents to the end pages with the licensing info.

Todd

---

From: Olaf Kolkman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 08:42:46 +0100

> look at the end of the document.

FWIW:

On my todo list is coordination of the implementation of draft-iab- 
streams-headers-boilerplates and in addition the consolidation of  
boilerplate material in RFCs and I-Ds. Part of the equation is  
figuring out if and where copyright and license boilerplate material  
can be moved.

The plan is "under construction".

--Olaf

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 06:30:04 -0700

> documents to the end pages with the licensing info.

It would surprise me if changing all of the existing documents was 
considered part of the scope of this suggestion.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Thornton, Colorado, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://www.ewellic.org
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages  ˆ

---

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 05:44:05 -0800

I doubt that this is a huge tool-builder issue. Lets not go looking for problems.

I think moving the boilerplate is a good idea, particularly for people who are still reading the TXT versions of the docs.

The only piece I would keep on the front page is the bit that says where comments should go.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] on behalf of Andrew Sullivan
Sent: Wed 3/4/2009 10:55 AM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Abstract on Page 1?

A

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:14:48 -0500

--On Thursday, March 05, 2009 05:44 -0800 "Hallam-Baker,
Phillip" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I think moving the boilerplate is a good idea, particularly
> for people who are still reading the TXT versions of the docs.
> 

I'd like to be sure that the people proposing this are all
actually proposing the same thing... versus the possibility that
they have different things in mind.

The proposed IAB document,
draft-iab-streams-headers-boilerplates, involves, among other
things, a significant restructuring of the "status of this memo"
material that will change it from roughly static boilerplate to
a few paragraphs that actually contain a lot of information
about streams, origins, approval mechanisms, level of consensus,
etc.

While its intent is to eliminate the vast majority of "IESG
Notes", whatever notes of that type remain are likely to contain
significant information.  

This is important, at least for me, because, while I'd lose no
sleep over seeing the Copyright and IPR notices moved to the end
(if the Trustees conclude, on the advice of Counsel, that doing
so would be ok), my personal belief at the moment is that
burying the Status information, especially in its newer form,
would be a mistake.

All of that material traditionally appears before the Abstract.
The combination of it with the copyright and IPR notices are
what often forces the Abstract partially or completely to Page
2.  Removing any component of that front-matter would typically
get the Abstract back onto Page 1, at least if the number of
listed authors and affiliations was well under the maximum.

Despite the apparent general agreement that moving material
would be a good idea, I am less convinced about the more
substantive (i.e., variable on a per-document or per-stream
basis) material and can interpret various of the comments as:

(i) Recommending moving the Copyright and IPR notices to the end
and leaving everything else alone.

(ii) Recommending moving all of the Status and IPR material that
now falls between the document title lines and the Abstract.

(iii) Recommending moving the "Status" material but not the IPR
material (note that, under 5378 and especially if the workaround
text is not added, the IPR material is a lot shorter than it
used to be).

And, while I haven't heard it suggested in anything I've read, 

(iv) Changing the order of material to
   Abstract
   Status
   Copyright
or
   Abstract
   Copyright
   Status
or
   Abstract
   Status
   (Copyright and IPR statements at the end)

Those who want to see the Status information moved should
probably immediately bring that to the attention of the IAB
because it might require some conceptual changes to the "On RFC
Streams, Headers, and Boilerplates" document referenced above,
not just moving text around.

       john

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 10:37:33 -0800

>they have different things in mind.

Fully agree.

>draft-iab-streams-headers-boilerplates,

This thread, until your message, was about Internet Drafts; yours is about RFCs. The issues are quite different.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:37:30 -0800

+1

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:48:09 -0500

--On Thursday, March 05, 2009 10:37 -0800 Paul Hoffman
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> actually proposing the same thing... versus the possibility
>> that they have different things in mind.
> 
> Fully agree.
> 
> This thread, until your message, was about Internet Drafts;
> yours is about RFCs. The issues are quite different.

As you might remember if you followed my many comments on this
list about the IAB document, I think that separating the two
--creating formats that are significantly different-- is looking
for all sorts of trouble.  IMO, one of our big breakthroughs of
the last few years has been the ability of authors and the RFC
Editor to work in xml2rfc format, doing clean diffs on the
relationship between an I-D and the final working ("AUTH48")
drafts of RFCs.  I'm also concerned about the burdens on
tool-builders and tools, especially those less sophisticated
than xml2rfc, if we end up needing references from boilerplate
in the front of documents to sections or pages near the end (or
buried in the middle).

So, to me at least, "move status and copyright to the end" gets
a lot less attractive if that is "...end of I-D but not RFCs"
rather than both.

It also leads me to wonder about alternate solutions if the
problem to be solved is really "abstract on page 1".

For example, if we are talking about I-Ds, maybe the length of
the Status section needs serious review.  In particular, I would
guess that 

	-- The second paragraph could be shortened significantly
	or dropped; I don't know what it accomplishes.
	
	-- While I'm one of the few remaining fans of the "valid
	for only six months" rule, it has been diluted
	sufficiently that perhaps we should be having a
	discussion about whether that paragraph, or at least the
	first half of the first sentence, is useful enough to
	justify the space any more, especially with the
	requirement for an expiration date on the document.
	
	-- The two "The list of..." paragraphs have almost
	certainly become noise.  The shadow list is not complete
	and still refers to FTP archives and 1id-abstracts.txt
	no longer contains the information that the sentence
	suggests it does.  Apparently no one has complained to
	the Secretariat or Tools Team about either, which is
	probably a hint about how useful they are. 

By my count, that would get rid of at least nine lines, or at
least eleven if we concluded that we don't need a "This
Internet-Draft will expire" statement in the Status if it
appears in page footers.

In addition, no matter what requirements exist about placement
of copyright notices, I can imagine no possible reason why the
order of Status and Abstract cannot simply be switched (in both
RFCs and I-Ds) other than whatever energy it takes to make the
decision.  Since the Status section is 22 lines long in its most
common current form (and without the workaround text) and the
RFC Editor strongly discourages abstracts longer than about a
dozen lines, just making that switch (even without the Status
trimming I suggest above) would get the Abstracts onto the first
page, always.

So, just as I'd like to understand what people are advocating
moving, I'd like to see if we can separate an objective (e.g.,
"get the Abstract onto Page 1") from a mechanism (e.g., "move
the boilerplate to the end").

   john

---

From: "Scott Lawrence" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:04:38 -0500

> about streams, origins, approval mechanisms, level of consensus,

I strongly support Margaret's proposal, and to be clear:
 
I think that _all_ the required status, process, and boilerplate
material in both RFCs and Internet Drafts should be moved to some
standard section at the end, with at most a one line comment _after_ the
Abstract directing the uninitiated reader to that material.

This is a trivial change for the generation tools to make - at worst it
will make one generation of diffs slightly more difficult (and I'd be
happy to trade one generation of poor diffs for this, so for me just
don't worry about fixing the diff tools).

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 07 Mar 2009 09:45:50 +0100

Scott Lawrence wrote:
> ...
> ...

At this point, no change to the boilerplate is trivial anymore.

For xml2rfc, we need to

- define how to select the new behavior (date? ipr value? rfc number?); 
if the behavior is not explicitly selected in the source, we need 
heuristics when to use the old one and when to use the new one (keep in 
mind that the tools need to be able to generate historic documents as well)

- add new test cases

- add documentation

So, I'm not against another re-organization, but, in this time, PLEASE:

- plan it well (think of all consequences for both I-Ds and RFCs)

- make the requirements precise and actually implementable (remember: 
"must be on page 1" :-)

- give the tool developers sufficient time; optimally let *then* decide 
when the cutover date should be

BR, Julian

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 07 Mar 2009 20:02:20 +0100

+1

Whether or not this is an easy fix for the tools, I think it's the right
thing to do, not only for drafts but also for RFCs, as it lets us focus
on the technical matter of a document, rather than copyright, other
IPR details, and administrivia.

	Henrik

---

From: David Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 11:21:47 -0800 (PST)

This seems like a really good idea from a usability perspective,
but I've not noticed any feed back from our official or unofficial legal 
community.

My concern would be whether there is a legal requirement that the 
copyright and other similar declarations be in the front of a document.
I'd certainly like to move the copyright and such from the front of every 
source file I've had to look at. In particular, the book sized 
declarations often used in the open source community or to conform to 
various UNIX licenses.

I can't recall any examples of any document or source file where the
copyright was at the end. It certainly isn't common.

David Morris

---

From: Cullen Jennings <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 13:49:51 -0700

On Mar 7, 2009, at 1:45 AM, Julian Reschke wrote:

> - make the requirements precise and actually implementable  
> (remember: "must be on page 1" :-)
>
> - give the tool developers sufficient time; optimally let *then*  
> decide when the cutover date should be
>
>
> BR, Julian

+1

Also, There are some changes the IESG needs to deal with, some the  
IAB, some the Trustees. We should incorporate all of this into one  
single document that shows clear examples of what things will look  
like so there is no confusion, then get all required approval bodies  
to approve it. Having half the changes in one doc, half in another doc  
results in unintended nightmares when we go to merge. I also propose  
we do our best to get it right once instead of a steady stream of  
changing requirements on document authors.

---

From: Cullen Jennings <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 13:52:30 -0700

> copyright was at the end. It certainly isn't common.

agree it is unusual and weird but much of resiprocate has them at the  
end because some people had a hard time with the page down key on the  
first page

https://svn.resiprocate.org/viewsvn/resiprocate/main/p2p/ChordTopology.cxx?view=markup

---

From: Olafur Gudmundsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 07 Mar 2009 23:22:20 -0500

>IPR details, and administrivia.

Hear hear,

IFF we need copyright on page 1 something like this should be sufficient:
"This document is covered by IETF Copyright policy <ID>, copy of this
policy can be found at the end of the document"

Or:
s/at the end of the document/at http://www.ietf.org/copyright_<ID>/

I have no comment on what form the <ID> part should take other than it
MUST be shorter than 30 characters.

         Olafur

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:52:46 +0100

> don't worry about fixing the diff tools).
warning: the definition of "end" has proved problematic in the past; 
there was rejoicing when the current templates removed all the 
boilerplate to be placed "at the end".

I kind of like page 2 (the "inner cover" when you print it in duplex), 
but since (I think) most people read RFCs online, it may not be far 
enough out of the way for most.

                     Harald

---

From: "Ed Juskevicius" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:37:40 -0400

+1.

I agree.

Regards,

Ed Juskevicius

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
Julian Reschke
Sent: March 7, 2009 3:46 AM
To: Scott Lawrence
Cc: John C Klensin; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Abstract on Page 1?

For xml2rfc, we need to

- add new test cases

- add documentation

BR, Julian

---

From: "Tom.Petch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:23:33 +0100

On an allied topic, I notice that a recent I-D - draft-ietf-sidr-arch-06.txt -
published March 9, 2009, had a running heading which included 'November 2008'.
Paranoid as I am, I immediately link this date to RFC5378 and the time when the
IETF Trust introduced the new rules for IPR.

Is there a connection orr is there some more innocent explanation as to why the
running heading is not March 2009?

Tom Petch

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:05:04 -0700

>running heading is not March 2009?

Cc to the authors of draft-ietf-sidr-arch-06.txt for the more 
innocent explanation.

The date for the Expires footer is "May 2009" whereas the I-D expires on
September 9, 2009.  There is a "Pre-5378 Material Disclaimer" section 
at the end of the I-D.

Regards,
-sm