>>>>> On Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:04:13 -0700, SM <sm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> said: SM> At 11:21 10-03-2009, Richard M Stallman wrote: RMS> In the cases where an experimental RFC is useful, how is it more RMS> useful for the Internet than publication of the same information in RMS> some other way? Long ago, before search engines, perhaps interested RMS> people would not have found it elsewhere, but that isn't true now. SM> The RFC Series predates the IETF. It is a repository of technical SM> information and, hopefully, it will still be around when I am no SM> longer around. I don't know how search engines will be years from now SM> but there is one thing I know. As long as the tradition is preserved, SM> the Internet community will have a mechanism to publish technical SM> information. Note here that the following are independent of one another: - Publication (RFC or other wise) - Patent contamination - Standards designation My remarks here are limited to Publication. I'll follow up with a separate note on what the solution is for the process as a whole. RFC publication in fact is more complex than SM describes. With RFC publication there is a real part and there is an imaginary part. The imaginary part is what is the process as advertised (in RFC-2026). That access to RFC publication is fair and reasonable and that the RFC series are a source for the Internet technical community at large. The real part is that IETF is now fully dominated by interests of proprietary big business. In practice the role of the RFC Editor for documents coming from outside of the IETF/IESG/IAB has been reduced to that of a glorified clerk of the IESG. Much of the Internet technical community has chosen to be outside of the IETF. And RFC publication is now mostly an IETF work group game. Plenty of concrete examples for both the real and the imaginary. In my case: http://mohsen.banan.1.byname.net/PLPC/120026 http://www.esro.org/documents/baseProtocols.html http://www.emsd.org/communicationRecord/rfc2524Publication/maillist.html In D. J. Bernstein's case: http://cr.yp.to/proto/rfced.html And all of those were in the cases of patent free protocols. Now in this particular case of a patent contaminated protocol extension why would non-RFC publication be adequate? ...Mohsen _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf