Re: RFC production center XML format usage, was: [IAOC] xml2rfc and legal services RFPs
On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 01:59:23PM -0500, Dave CROCKER wrote: > > I was impressed with just how steady that increase appears to be over a > reasonably extended period of time, as well as its seeming to be around > 70%, not 50%, now. > > Pretty serious 'market' domination... I submit that this is a consequence of the submission process. The idnits tool is now an effective gatekeeper against people who are preparing documents with something other than xml2rfc and, maybe, the *roff gui that's available. As a WG chair of a WG with a lot of participants who have older toolchains, I field regular complaints about how difficult it is to get things by idnits. My stock advice is to use xml2rfc, which is always being updated exactly so that it conforms to the latest physical layout rules. I personally think this is sort of a shame, because it reminds me of other (near) monocultures based on tools that are considerably worse than the state of the art (Word is my favourite example). A -- Andrew Sullivan a...@shinkuro.com Shinkuro, Inc. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: RFC production center XML format usage, was: [IAOC] xml2rfc and legal services RFPs
From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Sullivan [a...@shinkuro.com] how difficult it is to get things by idnits. ___ I would expect that the idnits rules change only very slowly. What is the real story on that? Dale ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: RFC production center XML format usage, was: [IAOC] xml2rfc and legal services RFPs
On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 10:18:10AM -0500, Worley, Dale R (Dale) wrote: > > I would expect that the idnits rules change only very slowly. What is the > real story on that? They seem to change more quickly than people realise. Also, of course, a whole bunch of changes can go by between a given contributor's last I-D, and a current one. Not all the changes are intentional; they're often pretty clearly based on heuristics that as often as not look to me like they're derived from what certain tools do. So then if someone submits something that doesn't do exactly what those tools do, they get a false failure. Note that none of this is to attack the tools developers. I've ranted before about the absurdity of checking the formatting of early drafts for perfection, so I won't bother again. A -- Andrew Sullivan a...@shinkuro.com Shinkuro, Inc. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: RFC production center XML format usage, was: [IAOC] xml2rfc and legal services RFPs
Hi Andrew, On 2011-02-24 16:28 Andrew Sullivan said: > On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 10:18:10AM -0500, Worley, Dale R (Dale) wrote: >> >> I would expect that the idnits rules change only very slowly. What is the >> real story on that? > > They seem to change more quickly than people realise. Also, of > course, a whole bunch of changes can go by between a given > contributor's last I-D, and a current one. Not all the changes are > intentional; they're often pretty clearly based on heuristics that as > often as not look to me like they're derived from what certain tools > do. So then if someone submits something that doesn't do exactly what > those tools do, they get a false failure. > > Note that none of this is to attack the tools developers. I've ranted > before about the absurdity of checking the formatting of early drafts > for perfection, so I won't bother again. Still, I feel that the characterization above is less than spot-on. Idnits in submission-checking mode only returns errors for a few selected things out of the myriad of things it is able to check, and those things are clearly required by http://www.ietf.org/id-info/1id-guidelines.txt . Only errors will prevent an automatic draft submission from going through; ignore the warnings and comments to your heart's content for that purpose. If you have examples of drafts which conform to the submission requirements of 1id-guidelines.txt, but don't pass the submission check mode of idnits, *please* tell me about them so I can fix things. The ratio of gripes against idnits to actual bug reports is getting to be a bit annoying; and I'd like to suggest that people either submit bug reports, or direct the complaints against the requirements of 1id-guidelines.txt rather than against the tool which checks the requirements if the problem is that the requirements are too strict. Henrik ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: RFC production center XML format usage, was: [IAOC] xml2rfc and legal services RFPs
> From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Henrik > Levkowetz [hen...@levkowetz.com] > > Only errors will prevent an automatic draft submission from going through; > ignore the warnings and comments to your heart's content for that purpose. Are you saying that one can order the draft submission process to continue even if the submission tool considers the draft to violate idnits? I had no idea that was possible; I believe (from memory) that that is not clear from the error output. > The ratio of gripes against idnits to actual bug reports is getting to > be a bit annoying; and I'd like to suggest that people either submit > bug reports, or direct the complaints against the requirements of > 1id-guidelines.txt rather than against the tool which checks the > requirements if the problem is that the requirements are too strict. Based on the user interface principle that each error message should make it clear what possible next steps are, perhaps your advice "either submit a bug report about the tool or direct a complaint against the requirements of 1id-guidelines.txt [give link]" should be provided in any message that the idnits-checker has rejected a draft. It would probably reduce the number of non-useful gripes. "There is a Toyota in the driveway. I am holding the keys in my hand. What do I do next?" Dale ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: RFC production center XML format usage, was: [IAOC] xml2rfc and legal services RFPs
On 24 Feb 2011, at 16:25, Worley, Dale R (Dale) wrote: >> From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Henrik >> Levkowetz [hen...@levkowetz.com] >> >> Only errors will prevent an automatic draft submission from going through; >> ignore the warnings and comments to your heart's content for that purpose. > > Are you saying that one can order the draft submission process to > continue even if the submission tool considers the draft to violate > idnits? I had no idea that was possible; I believe (from memory) that > that is not clear from the error output. > idnits reports 3 categories of nits: errors, warnings & comments. Only errors prevent automatic submission AFAIK. HTH Ben ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: RFC production center XML format usage, was: [IAOC] xml2rfc and legal services RFPs
On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 05:11:00PM +0100, Henrik Levkowetz wrote: > The ratio of gripes against idnits to actual bug reports is getting to > be a bit annoying; and I'd like to suggest that people either submit > bug reports, or direct the complaints against the requirements of > 1id-guidelines.txt rather than against the tool which checks the > requirements if the problem is that the requirements are too strict. You're quite right that I'm using "idnits" as a portmanteau for the whole "1id-guidelines checking at submission" bundle. My apologies for being imprecise. I am indeed complaining about the latter and not about the former. A -- Andrew Sullivan a...@shinkuro.com Shinkuro, Inc. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: RFC production center XML format usage, was: [IAOC] xml2rfc and legal services RFPs
On 2011-02-24 17:25 Worley, Dale R (Dale) said: >> From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Henrik >> Levkowetz [hen...@levkowetz.com] >> >> Only errors will prevent an automatic draft submission from going through; >> ignore the warnings and comments to your heart's content for that purpose. > > Are you saying that one can order the draft submission process to > continue even if the submission tool considers the draft to violate > idnits? I had no idea that was possible; I believe (from memory) that > that is not clear from the error output. This is at the top of the idnits output in submission checking mode: "Showing Errors (**), Warnings (==), and Comments (--). Errors MUST be fixed before draft submission." >> The ratio of gripes against idnits to actual bug reports is getting to >> be a bit annoying; and I'd like to suggest that people either submit >> bug reports, or direct the complaints against the requirements of >> 1id-guidelines.txt rather than against the tool which checks the >> requirements if the problem is that the requirements are too strict. > > Based on the user interface principle that each error message should > make it clear what possible next steps are, perhaps your advice > "either submit a bug report about the tool or direct a complaint > against the requirements of 1id-guidelines.txt [give link]" should be > provided in any message that the idnits-checker has rejected a draft. > It would probably reduce the number of non-useful gripes. It would also add noise (i.e., text which to most people most of the time would carry no relevant information, and would just have to be ignored) to each and every idnits report. If you google for 'idnits', go to the first hit and click on 'feedback' you'll be able to send feedback to the right place. Or go to tools.ietf.org and click on idnits, and do the same. I think that should be easy enough, without adding more noise to the world. Henrik ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: RFC production center XML format usage, was: [IAOC] xml2rfc and legal services RFPs
Hi Andrew, On 2011-02-24 17:38 Andrew Sullivan said: > On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 05:11:00PM +0100, Henrik Levkowetz wrote: >> The ratio of gripes against idnits to actual bug reports is getting to >> be a bit annoying; and I'd like to suggest that people either submit >> bug reports, or direct the complaints against the requirements of >> 1id-guidelines.txt rather than against the tool which checks the >> requirements if the problem is that the requirements are too strict. > > You're quite right that I'm using "idnits" as a portmanteau for the > whole "1id-guidelines checking at submission" bundle. My apologies > for being imprecise. I am indeed complaining about the latter and not > about the former. Ah. Ok. I'll go tweak some code, then :-) Best, Henrik ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: RFC production center XML format usage, was: [IAOC] xml2rfc and legal services RFPs
> From: Henrik Levkowetz [hen...@levkowetz.com] > > This is at the top of the idnits output in submission checking mode: > > "Showing Errors (**), Warnings (==), and Comments (--). > Errors MUST be fixed before draft submission." Are people complaining about the errors or the warnings? > It would also add noise (i.e., text which to most people most of the > time would carry no relevant information, and would just have to be > ignored) to each and every idnits report. > > If you google for 'idnits', go to the first hit and click on 'feedback' > you'll be able to send feedback to the right place. Or go to > tools.ietf.org and click on idnits, and do the same. I think that > should be easy enough, without adding more noise to the world. Hey, man, you're the one who doesn't like getting pointless complaints. I'm just suggesting ways you might be able to reduce them. Dale ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: RFC production center XML format usage, was: [IAOC] xml2rfc and legal services RFPs
--On Thursday, February 24, 2011 09:42 -0500 Andrew Sullivan wrote: > On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 01:59:23PM -0500, Dave CROCKER wrote: >> >> I was impressed with just how steady that increase appears to >> be over a reasonably extended period of time, as well as >> its seeming to be around 70%, not 50%, now. >> >> Pretty serious 'market' domination... Dave, Sure. But, having started this thread, let me point out that I don't think anyone has made a serious claim that xml2rfc is unimportant to the community, that it should not work well, or even that putting resources into making it more stable, more maintainable, or better behaved is a bad idea. Those figures are interesting but they would be relevant only if one of those "don't do this at all" arguments were being made. They haven't been. I raised two issues and two issues only: (i) That the "tell the community work is going to be started by issuing an RFP" model was suboptimal and maybe inappropriate. I think the discussions and conclusions of the last two weeks indicate that the community agrees with that position and that the IAOC has recognized that agreement. (ii) That perhaps the priorities about extensions in the draft RFP were inappropriate. I want to stress "perhaps" because, while I have a view on that subject, I think the correct priorities can emerge only from community discussion (which takes us back to (i) above). Interestingly, while the numbers you and others cite can be used to argue that improving RFC Editor Production Center Staff efficiency in dealing with documents arriving in xml2rfc format, they can equally well be used to argue that, if the community is producing that much text in that format, it is at least equally (if not more) important to improve the efficiency and capabilities of the tool (and DTD/Schema) for those who are originating/writing the documents. > I submit that this is a consequence of the submission process. > The idnits tool is now an effective gatekeeper against people > who are preparing documents with something other than xml2rfc > and, maybe, the *roff gui that's available. As a WG chair of > a WG with a lot of participants who have older toolchains, I > field regular complaints about how difficult it is to get > things by idnits. My stock advice is to use xml2rfc, which is > always being updated exactly so that it conforms to the latest > physical layout rules. > > I personally think this is sort of a shame, because it reminds > me of other (near) monocultures based on tools that are > considerably worse than the state of the art (Word is my > favourite example). I agree, especially with regard to having the tools over-constrain early drafts and sometimes thereby making it harder to expose ideas and get work done. I think the community should be pushing back, very hard, on submission tools that enforce rules that have never been formally announced by the IESG and/or approved by the community. But I think it is (or should be) a separate issue from whether and how we improve the behavior or robustness of xml2rfc. john ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: RFC production center XML format usage, was: [IAOC] xml2rfc and legal services RFPs
On 2011-02-25 05:38, Andrew Sullivan wrote: > On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 05:11:00PM +0100, Henrik Levkowetz wrote: >> The ratio of gripes against idnits to actual bug reports is getting to >> be a bit annoying; and I'd like to suggest that people either submit >> bug reports, or direct the complaints against the requirements of >> 1id-guidelines.txt rather than against the tool which checks the >> requirements if the problem is that the requirements are too strict. > > You're quite right that I'm using "idnits" as a portmanteau for the > whole "1id-guidelines checking at submission" bundle. My apologies > for being imprecise. I am indeed complaining about the latter and not > about the former. For the record, I positively like the facts that the submission tool carries out basic conformance checks and that 1id-guidelines is picky. 1. I like this as an author, because it avoids me having to check things as a separate step (until the draft is ready for AD review). 2. I like this as a reader and reviewer of drafts, because it leads to a very useful degree of uniformity in the way drafts are laid out. And while I'm at it, I like the fact that xml2rfc does a lot of fiddly stuff for me that I always found a pain in the neck with other methods. Yours, A Satisfied Customer ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: RFC production center XML format usage, was: [IAOC] xml2rfc and legal services RFPs
On 2/24/11 7:28 AM, Andrew Sullivan wrote: On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 10:18:10AM -0500, Worley, Dale R (Dale) wrote: I would expect that the idnits rules change only very slowly. What is the real story on that? They seem to change more quickly than people realise. Also, of course, a whole bunch of changes can go by between a given contributor's last I-D, and a current one. Not all the changes are intentional; they're often pretty clearly based on heuristics that as often as not look to me like they're derived from what certain tools do. So then if someone submits something that doesn't do exactly what those tools do, they get a false failure. Note that none of this is to attack the tools developers. I've ranted before about the absurdity of checking the formatting of early drafts for perfection, so I won't bother again. Off-list, I asked Henrik which errors the idnits step finds. A summary of his answer is "only two non-boilerplate errors (non-ascii characters, and lacking an Abstract), and many boilerplate errors (mostly bad IETF Trust text, some about the boring first-page boilerplate)". So, I suspect that the large percentage of the non-00 drafts getting kicked back are due to the IETF Trust requirements changing over time. We can argue (and have argued!) about all that, but I think saying "idnits" is likely just shooting the messenger. --Paul Hoffman ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: RFC production center XML format usage, was: [IAOC] xml2rfc and legal services RFPs
> From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Paul Hoffman > [paul.hoff...@vpnc.org] > > So, I suspect that the large percentage of the non-00 drafts getting > kicked back are due to the IETF Trust requirements changing over > time. We can argue (and have argued!) about all that, but I think > saying "idnits" is likely just shooting the messenger. I wouldn't be surprised. And although "idnits" catches the bullets that should be aimed elsewhere, it is where the problem is discovered. In a perfect world, we would ensure that the users are educated enough that they can discern the correct entity to blame and file their reports correctly. But in the real world, the target audience turns over fast enough that (collectively) it cannot learn. So would be more effective if the necessary information is presented to the user at the moment the problem becomes evident. Dale ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Weekly posting summary for ietf@ietf.org
Total of messages in the last 7 days. script run at: Thu Feb 24 19:37:45 EST 2011 Messages | Bytes| Who +--++--+ +--++--+ ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Weekly posting summary for ietf@ietf.org
Wow; I don't remember us being that quiet On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 4:37 PM, Thomas Narten wrote: > Total of messages in the last 7 days. > > script run at: Thu Feb 24 19:37:45 EST 2011 > >Messages | Bytes| Who > +--++--+ > +--++--+ > > ___ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@ietf.org > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > -- Clint (JOATMON) Chaplin Principal Engineer Corporate Standardization (US) SISA ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Weekly posting summary for ietf@ietf.org
Total of 70 messages in the last 7 days. script run at: Fri Feb 25 00:53:01 EST 2011 Messages | Bytes| Who +--++--+ 10.00% |7 | 7.88% |36422 | dwor...@avaya.com 4.29% |3 | 8.17% |37796 | evniki...@gmail.com 7.14% |5 | 5.13% |23712 | a...@shinkuro.com 4.29% |3 | 5.43% |25112 | hal...@gmail.com 4.29% |3 | 4.30% |19899 | john-i...@jck.com 2.86% |2 | 5.70% |26370 | sgin...@amsl.com 4.29% |3 | 3.79% |17503 | hen...@levkowetz.com 4.29% |3 | 3.24% |14985 | julian.resc...@gmx.de 4.29% |3 | 3.19% |14764 | do...@dougbarton.us 4.29% |3 | 3.16% |14600 | hous...@vigilsec.com 2.86% |2 | 3.70% |17099 | brian.e.carpen...@gmail.com 2.86% |2 | 3.50% |16168 | mo...@network-heretics.com 2.86% |2 | 3.44% |15903 | morrowc.li...@gmail.com 2.86% |2 | 3.37% |15582 | spen...@wonderhamster.org 2.86% |2 | 3.23% |14947 | bob.hin...@gmail.com 2.86% |2 | 2.46% |11354 | nar...@us.ibm.com 1.43% |1 | 2.31% |10685 | ron.even@gmail.com 1.43% |1 | 2.18% |10101 | even.r...@huawei.com 1.43% |1 | 2.15% | 9921 | b...@nostrum.com 1.43% |1 | 1.75% | 8086 | turn...@ieca.com 1.43% |1 | 1.54% | 7117 | sambasiva.manch...@nexustelecom.com 1.43% |1 | 1.42% | 6578 | berti...@bwijnen.net 1.43% |1 | 1.42% | 6557 | clint.chap...@gmail.com 1.43% |1 | 1.30% | 6020 | daedu...@btconnect.com 1.43% |1 | 1.26% | 5808 | i...@ietf.org 1.43% |1 | 1.25% | 5783 | n...@gnutls.org 1.43% |1 | 1.24% | 5716 | m...@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com 1.43% |1 | 1.22% | 5629 | derhoe...@gmx.net 1.43% |1 | 1.20% | 5531 | o...@cisco.com 1.43% |1 | 1.16% | 5362 | paul.hoff...@vpnc.org 1.43% |1 | 1.13% | 5216 | naz...@isoc.org 1.43% |1 | 1.12% | 5160 | ned+i...@mauve.mrochek.com 1.43% |1 | 1.04% | 4800 | b...@niven-jenkins.co.uk 1.43% |1 | 0.97% | 4469 | d...@dcrocker.net 1.43% |1 | 0.96% | 4461 | d...@dcrocker.net 1.43% |1 | 0.95% | 4373 | jdfalk-li...@cybernothing.org 1.43% |1 | 0.94% | 4346 | ch...@ietf.org 1.43% |1 | 0.92% | 4251 | s...@harvard.edu 1.43% |1 | 0.91% | 4216 | c...@tzi.org +--++--+ 100.00% | 70 |100.00% | 462402 | Total ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Weekly posting summary for ietf@ietf.org
4.29% |3 | 8.17% |37796 | evniki...@gmail.com 4.29% |3 | 5.43% |25112 | hal...@gmail.com 2.86% |2 | 3.70% |17099 | brian.e.carpen...@gmail.com 2.86% |2 | 3.44% |15903 | morrowc.li...@gmail.com 2.86% |2 | 3.23% |14947 | bob.hin...@gmail.com 1.43% |1 | 2.31% |10685 | ron.even@gmail.com 1.43% |1 | 1.42% | 6557 | clint.chap...@gmail.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOEMv0S8AcA < ..spying for free :-))) *SCNR* have a nice weekend all Marc -- Les enfants teribbles - research / deployment Marc Manthey- Vogelsangerstrasse 97 50823 Köln - Germany Tel.:0049-221-29891489 Mobil:0049-1577-3329231 blog: http://let.de project : http://opencu.org twitter: http://twitter.com/macbroadcast/ facebook : http://opencu.tk Opinions expressed may not even be mine by the time you read them, and certainly don't reflect those of any other entity (legal or otherwise). ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
