Subject: Authors Section on recyle clarifications to 2461and 2462

From: "Bound, Jim" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 02:00:22 -0500

As we recycle 2461 and 2462 specifications I suggest that no additional
names be added to the authors names for two reasons. First its not
"honorable" as nothing has been discussed nor I perceive currently will
be learned that adds any architectural value of "significance" to these
widely deployed and important IPv6 specifications.  The current authors
worked for many years and earned their names on this spec.  Second I
believe new editors should be put at the bottom of the spec under
recycle acknowledgements per the IETF new rule to reduce author names on
all specifications.

My .50 cents,
/jim

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From: "James Kempf" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 11:02:21 -0800

Jim,

Are there any precedents? What has IETF done in other cases where specs have
been rev-ed?

The only case I personally know of is Mobile IPv4, in which the
author/editor name was not changed when a new revision was put out, but
perhaps there are others where different procedures were followed.

            jak

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From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 07:28:37 +0200

> perhaps there are others where different procedures were followed.

I guess all this depends on the amount of modifications. When SIP
was revised from RFC 2542 to RFC 3261 or when EAP is being revised
from RFC 2284, authors were indeed added. But in both cases the
changes were quite significant, approaching a complete rewrite, even
if the protocol itself stayed the same and backwards compatibility
was retained.

My take is that if the changes are small corrections here and
there, the new editors (if different) deserve to be mentioned in
the contributors or acknowledgements sections. If the changes
are significant, including rewrites of complete sections or
addition of new functions, then they should be listed at the
top, after the original authors. If the case falls somewhere
in between... one way could be to list the original authors
as they are and after them add the new editor as "Mr.
NewEditor (ed)".

--Jari

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From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 20:55:30 -0500

> names be added to the authors names for two reasons.

I don't think such a rigid rule is appropriate. Authors/editors should
be properly acknowledged for their work. If a new author/editor takes
over an existing RFC, they should be given appropriate credit.  As one
of the authors on these drafts, I would assume that sharing the
credits is a given, since I don't have the cycles to edit the
documents myself.

I think it's also a bit premature to be definitive about what the
final authorship should be. When the revised document is closer to
being done, at that point we can assess how much work was involved in
the new version, who did that work, and what the best way to
acknowledge it should be.

> The current authors worked for many years and earned their names on
> this spec.

That may be true, but it is certainly also true that a lot of what is
in the specs is a result of a lot of community input. If anyone looks
at (say) ND and thinks I'm an "author" of that spec, I think that
would be somewhat misleading. There was a real team effort behind that
document. (Excuse me for a moment while I reminisce for a moment...) I
also think it is also somewhat destructive to the IETF ideals to
somehow assume that I (or any other author on a document) is author
for life, no matter what happens. WG documents are supposed to be WG
documents - reflecting the will of the WGs. They are not documents
owned by authors. And as Jari has pointed out already, it's not
uncommon for revisions of documents to end up with 75% new text. The
original authors are hardly "authors" anymore in such cases.

Folks might also want to have a look at section 2.12
draft-rfc-editor-rfc2223bis-07.txt. It talks specifically about a
"contributers" section, which is intended to make it much more clear
who the actual contributers are. That would be a fine place to mention
the actually history of the document in more detail. I wish more
documents took this approach.

Thomas

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From: JINMEI Tatuya / 神明達哉 <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 16:09:21 +0900

>>>>> On Sun, 2 Nov 2003 02:00:22 -0500, 
>>>>> "Bound, Jim" <[email-masked]> said:

> recycle acknowledgements per the IETF new rule to reduce author names on

I believe Thomas and Brian perfectly clarified the "process" issues
including this (thanks!), and I have basically nothing to add the
clarifications.  But as a person listed as a co-editor in the
rfc246[12]bis drafts, I think I'm responsible for making a response.

I didn't intend to claim I would get a credit as an inventor of the
specifications by listing myself in the top page.  I fully respect the
work by the RFC authors.  I think all the credits about the essential
techncical part of the specification should go to the orignal authors,
and to the original authors only.

If I gave anyone of you the impression that I'm making a false claim
by the organization of the author (or editor) list, I'm sad and
apologize for the careless edit.

For further revisions (if any), I'll follow the latest suggestion by
Brian, and, as a result, the author list will not change.  I'm
perfectly fine with the policy that we'll decide how the final list
should be organized when the document comes close to publication.

					JINMEI, Tatuya
					Communication Platform Lab.
					Corporate R&D Center, Toshiba Corp.
					[email-masked]