Brian,
On 2015-04-24 02:58, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
Hi Loa,
On 23/04/2015 20:34, Loa Andersson wrote:
Brian,
On 2015-04-23 06:08, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
To some extent this thread has been ducking the question that lies behind it.
What is an author, in the IETF context? There's no short answer, so here's
a draft of a long answer. If people think it's useful, I can author an
I-D about it...
Scope
These guidelines are aimed at Internet-Drafts in the IETF publication stream.
They are intended to be compatible with the RFC Editor's style guide (RFC7322)
as well.
Authors
Authors are people who have made a substantial creative contribution to the document.
Normally this means writing text or drawing diagrams. Occasionally, with the consent
of the other authors, it means making some other substantial creative contribution to
the document, for example by writing a software implementation as part of the design
process.
If we have A, B, C, D, E and F that all claim that they have equal
contributions to a particular document, according to your definitions
it would be wrong to move any of them to the contributors section,
right?
If we have A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H, the same applies?
You are trying to murder me with 1000 recursive cuts :-).
Yes, of course there is that problem. When you get to the RFC Editor,
you can have that discussion, and I won it for RFC 7421 for example.
As my message said, it's a judgement call.
I'm actually quite supportive of coming up with guidelines, as long as
they are written in a way that it not appear that they are rules written
in stone (I have not yet read your draft).
I think you'll have the same problem as we had with the "secretary"
draft. Definitions and understanding of the concept (secretary or
author) are very different in different places.
- the folks that write a draft, has one understanding of who the
authors are
- working groups seem to have as many understandings as there are
working groups
- ADs have their own understanding
- the RFC Editor yet another
- I have one and you have possibly another.
Of all these above I would actually favor that we ask the people
listed on the draft who are the author(s).
I'm opposed to have a fixed number. And yes - I understand that there
is such a thing as "too many"! An such cases we should agree on one or
two editors and move the rest to an "Authors" section. Different from
what you define as "Contributors", i.e. we could have editors on page 1,
one authors section and one contributors section, as well as
acknowledgments.
A second reason I'm opposed to a fixed number is what happens quite
frequently - we have 4 names on the front page, two of those are the
actual authors (your definition), the other two are at best contributors
(still your definition), but in that case moving them to the
contributors section never happens.
/Loa
Brian
/Loa
People who did not make any such substantial contribution must not be listed
as authors. People must not be listed as authors without their explicit permission.
The practical impact is that the authors will be listed as such on the front page if
the document becomes an RFC.
Contributors
Contributors are people who made smaller creative contributions to the document
than the authors.
People who did not make any such contribution must not be listed as contributors.
People must not be listed as contributors without their explicit permission.
The dividing line between contributors and authors is matter of judgement. However,
the RFC Editor's policy is to query any document that has more than five listed authors.
Editors
When a document has a large number of contributors and potential authors, it may
be appropriate to designate one or two people as "Editors" and list all the others
as contributors. The practical impact of this is that the editors will be listed
as such on the front page if the document becomes an RFC.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements should be given to people who have made significant creative
contributions smaller than those from the authors and contributors, or to people
who have made useful comments, provided critical reviews, or otherwise contributed
significantly to the development of the document. Acknowledgements may also be given
to people or organizations that have given material support and assistance, but
this should not include the authors' regular employers.
An acknowledgement does not signify that the person acknowledged agrees with the
document. In general, people who do not wish to be listed as an author or a
contributor, but have in fact made a significant contribution, should be given
an acknowledgement.
Copyright
None of the above affects copyright. Copyright in IETF documents is governed
by BCP 78, the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions, and applicable national and
international law.
Regards
Brian
On 23/04/2015 14:55, John Levine wrote:
In article <20150423021027.GL16567@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> you write:
On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 01:58:27AM -0000, John Levine wrote:
Someone pointed out that the authors all get notices when a new draft
is posted. That seems good enough for the rare cases of false
attribution, so "never mind".
Except that the people included are thereby on the record as somehow
being an author of these things, and maybe they don't want to be. I
think that's a little worrisome.
I was assuming that aggrieved non-authors could then use out of band
means to ask that their unauthored drafts be unpublished. At least
this lets them know about funny business.
Sure, a sufficiently devious author could use fake addresses that he
controlled, but that seems a higher degree of evil than we need to
plan for. Should it happen, I'm sure we'll have the tools to swat the
violators.
R's,
John
--
Loa Andersson email: loa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Senior MPLS Expert loa@xxxxx
Huawei Technologies (consultant) phone: +46 739 81 21 64