--On Monday, 05 March, 2007 09:19 -0800 Paul Hoffman
<paul.hoffman@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> At 8:53 AM -0800 3/5/07, Bob Braden wrote:
>> *> FWIW, I don't think we want to start bouncing specs
>> because they *> don't pay homage - in this case all the
>> similarities are probably *> the only obvious ways to add
>> authorization tokens to a TLS *> handshake. Such downrefs
>> to dead documents would anyway add yet *> more cruft to the
>> RFC process, so let's not.
>> *>
>> *> S.
>> *>
>>
>> s/cruft/integrity/
>
> How does adding a downref to a dead document add more
> integrity to the RFC process?
Independent of the merits in this particular case, it provides
history and context. We have learned, or should have learned,
two things over and over again:
(1) Failure to provide context and a track through
rejected and alternative suggestions results in "new"
proposals to try the same things again, usually from
people who had no idea about the prior work.
(2) Providing good documentation that recognizes the
origins of an idea and its date, even if there were some
changes from the original version, can be very helpful
in defending our work against patent vultures who try to
make filings on work that the IETF has had under
development for some time. Personally, I've reached the
point that I would favor having most protocol
specification RFCs contain a sentence of the form of
"The work described here derives from a series of
earlier drafts, including [ref, ref, ref] the first of
which was circulated in 1968."
In addition, in the general case, it can be argued that
referencing prior work, even "dead drafts" is _required_ by the
obligation to recognize and acknowledge the involvement of
contributors of either ideas or text.
john
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