On 07/09/2012 15:48, Joe Touch wrote: > > > On 9/5/2012 7:51 AM, SM wrote: > ... >> Creating a perpetual I-D archive for the sake of rfcdiff is not a good >> idea as it goes against the notion of letting an I-D expire gracefully. Speaking as a document reviewer for both Gen-ART and the Independent Submission stream, and for that matter as a generic reviewer of various WG documents, I consider the I-D archive to be an invaluable resource. Looking back to see when a particular change was made can be quite important. Speaking as an author of I-Ds, I find the archive very useful when trying to figure out if an idea is new, or tracking back from a WG mail archive to an I-D that is discussed therein. Basically, the archive noticeably enhances the way I work on IETF documents. Also, I think there is a definite benefit to having a *public* archive of potential prior art. Anyway who suspects prior art exists in an old I-D has the possibility of searching for confirmation. If there was no public archive, only a subpoena would find the prior art. > +1 > > Let's not forget there was a reason for expiration. Expired != invisible Also, expiration, as a fact of experience, does not prevent I-Ds being widely cited. I was quite embarassed at one point to discover that draft-carpenter-metrics (expired 11/1996) was being cited as if it had some authority, and I can assure you that its absence from any public *.ietf.org directory did nothing to prevent the citations. That's one example among hundreds, no doubt. > I'm OK with the archive being public so long as at least the authors can > remove an ID *without needing to provide a reason*. Why? I-Ds are public speech. Generally, you can't erase public speech. If I decide next week that this message was stupid, I can't erase it from the mail archive. Why are I-Ds different? Sometimes there might be valid reasons (like "I broke the copyright rules") but I think you need to state a reason. > Yes, removal from the IETF site will not expunge copies from the entire > Internet, but the IETF site should set the example here, and respect the > original intent of allowing an ID to expire. I think making it clear that the archive contains expired documents is necessary, but expiry by obscurity isn't going to work. Brian