On Jun 20, 2006, at 11:02 AM, Bob Braden wrote:
*> Quite true. But as long as the RFC Editor finds it necessary
to use a
*> multi-stage process to produce RFCs with hand tweaking of the
output at
*> different stages, I doubt that they will be willing to do this
because the
*> input document will not in fact reproduce what's in the RFC.
This is why tool
*> improvement to eliminate the need for hand tweaking is so
important. But
*> in the meantime, I would hope the RFC Editor would be willing
to hand back
*> the xml2rfc source to the author. It's a stopgap, but a useful
stopgap.
We are willing to do so, and have been doing so. You just have to ask.
Yes, but what you get back doesn't correspond to the RFC, because of
the downstream edits. A volunteer just went through a fairly
laborious process to reconstruct the XML version of RFC4287 so that
an HTML version could be made available (Yes, I know only the ASCII
version is normative). To me it seems that this work should not be
necessary. -Tim
In the current process we have to include a disclaimer that the final
AUTH48 corrections and formatting niceties may not be included in the
XML source we give back. However, it is still useful as a starting
point for later documents. Note that this is potentially a little
dangerous, though, because people might start archiving the
almost-correct XML and later regenerate an almost-correct copy of the
document.
*>
*> I don't know what needs to be done to make xml2rfc better, but
I sure wish the
*> RFC Editor would spend whatever time it takes with the folks
who work on
*> xml2rfc to accomplish this.
As we have announced at several plenary reports (does anyone ever pay
attention??), the RFC Editor has been trying to work with the xml2rfc
fraternity to make xml2rfc into an effective document formatting tool.
It has not been quick or easy. I just checked with one of our
editors,
Alice Hagens, who uses xml2rfc regularly. She tells me that she
entered several issues into the xml2rfc tracker, but she does not
think
"anyone is looking at it any more." There is unfortunately a
fundamental disconnect: philosophically, the xml2rfc folks don't WANT
it to be an effective markup language, which is essentially what is
needed.
Bob Braden
*>
*> > In addition to giving us some concrete evidence of how
*> > many RFCs use each source format, it would greatly simplify
*> > the process of writing new drafts...
*>
*> Sure - a central repository makes it easy for anyone to come
along and produce
*> a document revision. Depending on authors preserving input
sources is not
*> nearly as flexible.
*>
*> Ned
*>
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