Re: enum services registry question

Thomas Narten skrev:
> Bernie Hoeneisen <[email protected]> writes:
>   
>   
>> The term "permanent and readily available public specification" states the 
>> intension, but I think it is a bit vague, when it comes to what qualifies 
>> to this term. Furthermore it does not say much about the change management 
>> of such a specification.
>>     
>
> Correct. We can't know in advance which documents (that have already
> been pubished somehow) meet the test, so some common sense is
> needed. If a document is already published somewhere, and it is clear
> that the publication is permanent, there is really no need to also
> have a copy available elsewhere. It would be OK to do so, but it
> should not be required.
>
>   
>> To be on the safe side, I guess we should ensure that a copy of the 
>> specification (as reviewed by expert) is always maintained at IANA, 
>> unless there is an RFC (that can be simply referenced).
>>     
>
> I'm not opposed to this, but I also think we need to remember that the
> IETF is not the only ogranization capable of publishing documents
> "permanently". And we should only do this if we are worried that a
> particular document is important and might "go away" at some point in
> the future. Is the document in question of this type?
>   
I think there are 2 failure modes we're trying to guard against here:

1) Being totally unable to find the specification underlying a
codepoint. In these Google-infested times, that's rarely going to be a
problem.

2) Having 2 people holding incompatible versions of the specification
both claiming that "THIS is the specification that was registered". In
that case, any stable identifier (ISBN number, standards organization +
document serial number, author + spec name + date....) will do to
adjudicate the case.

So I think the stability of the identifier is critical. Having a copy of
the document is also nice.

                   Harald