I wonder what thoughts people have about this paragraph, though:
At 07:52 AM 1/14/2004, The IETF Secretariat wrote:
When an Internet-Draft expires, a "tombstone" file will be created that includes the filename and version number of the Internet-Draft that has expired. The filename of the tombstone file will be the same as that of the expired Internet-Draft with the version number increased by one. If a revised version of an expired Internet-Draft is submitted for posting, then the revised version will replace the tombstone file and will receive the same version number as that previously assigned to the tombstone file. Tombstone files will never expire and will always be available for reference unless they are replaced by updated versions of the subject Internet-Drafts.
This affects me in two ways.
First, I maintain Cisco's internet draft and RFC mirrors. My procedure is pretty simple. Every night, I run a process which
- obtains a list of the drafts/rfcs on the IETF server, via FTP - creates a list of the drafts/rfcs on my mirror - takes a diff between the 'ls' outputs - downloads the new files via FTP - deletes the ones that are no longer there
This has an interesting side-effect in our present (I suppose I should say past) system: since an expired draft gets a tombstone file that lasts for six months but does not change the name, the name remains on the IETF server. Hence, in *my* mirror, an expired draft is still available until the tombstone is removed six months later. For my purposes, that can be a nice side-effect, although it is one I'm not stuck on.
If I can have two separate files (a tombstone and a subsequent new file version) that have the same name, as described in the recent announcement, I am going to have to figure out a trigger that will tell me that I need to re-download the file.
Second, every 4 months we post ~700 IDs. Many of these are -00, meaning "new name". Every ID that is posted eventually expires, which means that according to the above procedure we are going to accumulate empty tombstone files at a rate of perhaps 1000-2000 per year ad infinitum.
It seems to me that there is a better approach to the above, at least in the context of the above. If the "tombstone" is literally as described, it would be far more space/search/etc efficient for us to have the tombstone consist of an added text line in a file indicating that the named draft expired on a certain date, and keep separate files for the active internet drafts. It seems to me that this makes it simpler to maintain a mirror and to find temporary documents.
Thoughts?