On 25/06/2019 19:38, Kent Watsen wrote:
We inherited a structure in which RFC are immutable. This leads to
the errata process and long cycles of updates by WG processes. Is
that the best we can do?
I have many times observed the value in RFCs being immutable - e.g. as
prior art in patent cases (which actually improves the ability of the
public to use our protocol standards) and to minimize confusion
between versions (if you're quoting RFC XXXX for some particular XXXX
it means the same thing to everybody, rather than having to also cite
a date or version).
Regarding erratum, though a formal process exists to review and publish
errata exists, it seems to be of little effect, as few observe, much
less are even aware, such exists, despite the text in the boilerplate on
the first page and the link at the top of each RFC's tools.ietf.org
<http://tools.ietf.org> page. Experience/opinions may vary on this point.
I sometimes wonder if a lightweight errata-driven republication of RFCs,
whereby the "latest" is displayed by default, wouldn't be better. Yes,
this leads to versions, such as RFC XXXX.[0-9]*, but why is this a
problem or, rather, how is it any worse than current? The "displaying
the latest by default" behavior may be limited to just the tools page,
but that being the primary access point seems like a lot of goodness to me.
PS: I agree that this is low-priority relative to other items being
discussed, but wanted to mention it while the door was open.
Kent
That is a good idea and provides better change control since you ought
to be able to establish which errata were implemented whereas at the
moment there is no short hand way to specify that.
- Stewart
