Lyndon You make some good points. However, I have not proposed that we change the RFC process, and I've been very carefull to propose that we only accept xml optionally, retaining the requirement to 'send text'. I did so quite deliberately, and I'd really appreciate it if we could take this one small step, rather than changing the entire process, which has served us well for so long. We get a very large bang for such a small, incremental addition. Can we just try this step and see what happens? Brian > -----Original Message----- > From: Lyndon Nerenberg [mailto:lyndon@orthanc.ab.ca] > Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 5:24 AM > To: Jari Arkko > Cc: ietf@ietf.org > Subject: Re: A modest proposal - allow the ID repository to hold xml > > > On Wed, 3 Sep 2003, Jari Arkko wrote: > > > I'd very much like to allow the submission of XML to the > > I-D directories. > > > However, in addition I'd like to actually allow the > > submission of HTML, generated by xml2rfc. Why? Because > > I'd really like to browse most drafts through my browser, > > jump to sections, find the references easily etc. And without > > performing any extra steps by myself. > > One of the primary reasons for proposing XML as the canonical > RFC format > is that these other formats (ASCII text, HTML, PDF/Postscript, > refer/indxbib, SQL, Tektronix 4013) can be derived from the > XML source. > > Presumably the RFC editor would publish the XML document as the > authoritative version, and would also generate and publish > (from the XML) > alternative copies in the ASCII text, PDF, and HTML formats. > > This satisfies the "plain ASCII text rules" bigots (in which camp I am > still firmly entrenched) while taking advantage of the markup > and linking > facilities provided by PDF and HTML. (I've completely given > up hope that > Microsoft will ever acknowledge that non-flowed text/plain must be > rendered with a mono-spaced font, fifty years of prior art be > damned, eh?) > > > (It may be that this is possible via XML as well -- I'm > > not expert in XML so I can't tell if its readily supported > > by everyone's browser without loading lots of DTDs. Does > > someone know?) > > The point of XML is that you don't have to be able to read > it. Given an > XML DTD for RFCs, tools can be written that express the XML > in pretty much > any format you like. HTML would certainly be one of those > formats. (And > for guys like me who live and die by grep, even *I* would buy into an > xmlrfcgrep program that provided grep functionality against > "XML-RFC-DTD" > files.) > > > And all of these submission formats should be allowed if > > and only there's a text version to go with it. > > Let me go out on a limb and say "No they shouldn't; only XML > submissions > should be allowed." > > > > Now that the shrapnel has stopped whizzing past my head, let > me explain > why. > > The traditional way of writing RFCs is with nroff, typically using a > minimal subset of the -ms macros. In recent years Microsoft > Word (along > with other WYSIAWYG software) has invaded the traditional > UNIX typesetting > tools workspace to a certain degree (in the context of writing > IETF-related documents). Regardless, other than the > occasional Loonie who > formats this stuff purely by hand, we are all already using markup > languages to create these documents. That being the case, XML > isn't a new > way of writing these documents, it's just a different one. > The current RFC > DTD isn't complicated, and -- as long as it's kept simple[*] > -- I don't > see any excuse for people not to use it. Then again, I've > been using troff > exclusively for 20 years now, to the point where I can > _almost_ see the > consistency of its syntax ... > > While there isn't a whole lot I *can't* accomplish in troff, > my experience > with using it to write I-Ds suggests that those documents are so > structured that I really just want to write a simple set of macros > tailored for that task. I shudder to think what the Word crowd goes > through in this regard. WYS might be WYG, but the path > between the two (in > my very limited experience) is one whose mana will suck the > very sanity > from your living soul. > > There is no argument to be made against the suitability of XML as the > canonical format for authoring RFCs and drafts. Writing the > raw XML might > not be pleasant, but neither is writing raw 'roff (or MS > Word) for many > people. Let's embrace this as an opportunity. If we can get > the marketing > twits to concentrate on selling GUI XML RFC authoring tools, > we just might > be able to distract them from contaminating the actual working groups. > > --lyndon > > [*] The critical aspect is that the DTD *must* be kept > simple. If the DTD > evolves into a Turing machine with Perl-like syntax we can just > acknowledge that it's time to shut down the IETF and go home. > I cling to > the forlorn hope that people still know - and more importantly, > understand - what the 'E' in IETF stands for. > > _______________________________________________ > This message was passed through > ietf_censored@carmen.ipv6.cselt.it, which is a sublist of > ietf@ietf.org. Not all messages are passed. Decisions on what > to pass are made solely by Raffaele D'Albenzio. >