Hi Scott - Thanks for pointing out the proceedings. Having the i-d's published there certainly demonstrates how futile it is to pretend that we can erase history. The position that Bill Manning and Joe Touch are taking reminds of when I was ordered by the Secretary-General of the ITU to erase all Internet copies of their standards. I was a little puzzled by the strong reaction of both Bill Manning and Joe Touch. They seem to be bringing up two points: 1. Bill has pointed out that some I-D's are *not* offered in accordance with section 10 of rfc2026 and thus, as I understand his reasoning, he only granted a 6-month license to publish. 2. Joe seems to take a stronger position, which is all I-D's are (or have been) granted only a 6-month license to publish. I went back and reviewed the RFC's (many of which you wrote), and they are extremely unclear on the subject. In fact, 2026 makes it clear that all the I-D's will be archived. Earlier docs don't touch on the subject. And, the preamble appended to every draft is pretty unclear. What is clear is that an I-D is "valid" for only six months. As I understand that term it means "on the table for consideration by the IESG or others as a possible standard." With all due respect, it seems to me that there is no prior policy on this subject and the texts are very much subject to differing interpretations. I believe both Bill and Joe are taking very extreme positions on the subject and I'm not sure their views reflect anything resembling a prior policy, or even a universal understanding. It seems like a very legalistic interpretation of a very vague policy, and (imho) that policy goes against core values like openess, and transparency. In any case, it does sound like decomposing the problem into two pieces makes sense: 1. make a clear going-forward "keep all drafts in an archive" policy 2. figure out if there might be a community consensus to decide what the prior policy was, perhaps using a mechanism such as opt-out if there is a vocal but very small minority who disagrees. Regards, Carl > > Something was pointed out to me in private mail that I should have > remembered but did not. > > Since Aug 1998 the IETF proceedings have included the then-current > Internet drafts (except for one meeting which seems to be missing). > > As I recall, this was started when the secretariat started offering CDs > of the proceedings and there was extra space on the CDs. It was > decided to include the IDs since the space was there to do so. > (My memory is that Steve Coya suggested this to the IESG and the > IESG thought it was a good idea.) > > Anyway - that means that most IDs since mid 1998 are already posted on > the IETF web site, they are just not posted in an easy to use way. > > see > > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/98aug/I-D/ > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/98dec/I-D/ > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/99mar/I-D/ > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/99jul/I-D/ > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/99nov/I-D/ > 00mar - missing > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/00jul/I-D/ > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/00dec/I-D/ > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/01mar/I-D/ > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/01aug/I-D/ > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/01dec/I-D/ > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/02mar/I-D/ > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/02nov/I-D/ > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/03mar/I-D/ > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/03jul/I-D/ > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/03nov/I-D/ > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/04mar/I-D/ > > Scott > > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf