*> I would have to agree with a number of other people who have replied
*> to this email. There does need to be an archive of I-Ds. There are
*> many I-Ds that were written several years ago that are still
*> referenced often and pointed at. I am thinking of several in the
*> areas of addressing and routing that while they never lead to
*> standards and some never were intended to provide a good piece of
*> background or analysis of problems we have faced and the thinking
*> that went into them.
If they are worth keeping, they are worth publishing as RFCs.
*> (Often the answer isn't enough, new issues may
*> require re-visiting why we went where we did. For example, recently
*> I wanted to find the old arguments from the ROAD process about how
*> many addresses we need. It was very difficult to find. There are
*> many similar examples.)
*>
*> I-Ds are for the most part contributions to the process of creating a
*> standard. It would be inappropriate for most of them to be made even
*> Informational RFCs. While it may be worthwhile to retire I-Ds as
If they are not worth keeping, they are not worth keeping.
Bob Braden
*> active for a group's consideration after 6 months, it would be good
*> if they were kept. (Actually, I am surprised they are not. Generally
*> they are kept as part of the paper trail in case some should sue that
*> they were not given due consideration. One can go to the paper trail
*> to show that due consideration was given. The email archive is one
*> part of that but without the I-Ds they talk about it might not be
*> sufficient.)
*>
*> But overall, I believe that these are valuable to keep for historical
*> reasons at the very least. I have seen too many cases where people
*> writing books have made up the history because it seemed reasonable
*> rather than go dig through the sources. It will be even worse if the
*> sources don't exist. (Then some day in the future someone will
*> decide that we did this because there was something to hide!!!! God
*> forbid!) There needs to be an I-D archive.
*>
*> Frankly, the RFC space is overloaded to the point that it is very
*> confusing to the uninitiated as to what the documents are, standards,
*> some early ones are just observations, comments on documents, etc.
*> It would much less confusing to the outside world if an RFC were just
*> one thing. Even ISO distinguishes Standards from Technical Reports,
*> i..e. Informational RFCs or BCPs.
*>
*> Take care,
*> John
*>
*>
