--On Wednesday, 31 January, 2007 17:02 +0000 "Steven M.
Bellovin" <smb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:54:26 -0500
> John C Klensin <john-ietf@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>
>> Except for the fact that the material being cited contains the
>> specifics of license and IPR releases, and promises to abide
>> by certain rules, by the authors. Authors can't reasonably be
>> asked to agree to something that might be published under the
>> BCP number in the indefinite future, so you are either stuck
>> with a document (RFC) number or a BCP as of a specific date,
>> which amounts to the same thing and is harder to track down.
>>
>
> I'll let Jorge correct me if I'm wrong, but referencing by
> <number,date> is the norm in the legal world, since statutes
> do get amended without necessarily being renumbered.
I believe that is correct. The problem here is that, as a
consequence of that referencing system, they have taken measures
to be sure that the version corresponding to the reference is
readily available. We don't do that: finding out what was
actually BCP NNN on some particular date requires both skill and
out of band knowledge.
> I do agree we want to make it easy for non-lawyers. I've
> suggested a date-stamped archive of each version of each such
> document, for precisely that reason.
That, of course, would do that job and eliminate all of my
objections. But it does mean that, for many purposes, we can't
use a reference to "BCP nnnn", it must be a reference to "BCP
nnnn as of yyyymmdd" or its equivalent.
john
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