Re: enum services registry question

Thanks Harald, for the summary.  I hadn't thought of your second 
point, but that is true, without a clearly defined reference if there 
are two purported definitions it may not be clear which is the 
legitimate one.

I was told, by a librarian-type person, some years ago that URLs are 
not really good references.  They are good ways to locate something 
but there are too many variable in the resolution of a URL to make it 
ever considered stable.  I've been biased by that claim against ever 
saying that a URL is sufficient.

Does IANA archive documents now?  I certainly would like that but I 
don't know if it is within the scope of the contracted-role they have.

In any case, the enumservices registry ought to have references that 
are traceable as well as pointers to available copies of the 
documents.

At 10:25 +0100 1/8/08, Bernie Hoeneisen wrote:
>Hi Harald
>
>Thanks for the excellent summary.
>
>However, it covers just the cases, when there is already a problem. 
>I'd rather like to see _avoiding_ such problems or confusions in the 
>first place. Thus, I'd prefer to make it _clear_ from the beginning, 
>which specification applies. This leads to an URL pointing to a 
>stable place of the spec. A stable place is certainly fullfilled in 
>the RFC case. Also many other (standards) organizations have such 
>means. But there are always cases, where maintaining a copy of the 
>spec locally is more than just a nice-to-have. IMHO the best place 
>for this would be IANA. To be on the safe side, IANA maintaining a 
>copy of every spec related to a IANA codepoint looks like a good 
>idea to me.
>
>cheers,
>  Bernie
>
>On Tue, 8 Jan 2008, Harald Alvestrand wrote:
>
>>  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

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Edward Lewis                                                +1-571-434-5468
NeuStar

Think glocally.  Act confused.