> From: ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On > Behalf Of Christian Huitema > > Hence the desire to have the RFC Editor use xml2rfc, rather than > nroff. > > I don't think publishing the xml2rfc test is such a good > idea. Xml2rfc is a preparation format. The printed result is > a combination of the xml2rfc input and a formatting program > of some kind. This formatting program is bound to change over > time, e.g. when templates change. You want to archive the > final result, not the initial input. Why do you think that? What you want to do is to get as close as possible to the original author's intent. Over time the publication media is going to change. In time very idea of 'print' is going to become an anacronism. If you have a large, high speed, high resolution display and the ability to comment on the text paper is a distinctly inferior technology. Electronic documents do not behave in the same way that people imaging paper ones do, but paper documents do behave that way either, get over it. At the end of the day the real authoritative version of the standard is the bits on the wire. Any specification that is not updated on a regular basis - five years or less is going to diverge from reality to a much greater degree than any imaginable difference in formatting templates. _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf