Subject: Re: Coupling RFC copying conditions with the existence of the IETF

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 11:30:03 -0500

>>>>> "Brian" == Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> writes:

    Brian> Personal opinion: I find much more confusion in these
    Brian> comments than in the draft. I don't see any grounds to
    Brian> believe that it's in the IETF's best interests, or in
    Brian> technology users' best interests, for technical
    Brian> specifications to be "free documents" in the sense used
    Brian> below. Technical specifications are used to achieve
    Brian> interoperability; in the Internet we strive for global
    Brian> interoperability.  So *preventing* 3rd party modifications
    Brian> to specifications is essential to their value as freely
    Brian> available open interoperability standards.

Several of us have argued that making standards not freely modifiable
does not actually reduce the chances that such standards will be
modified.  Instead it will mean that when the standards are modified,
they are not clearly documented.

Clear documentation improves global interoperability.  Unless you or
someone else can show that making our standards not freely modifiable
actually reduces modification then I think global interoperability is
best served by freely modifiable standards.

--Sam

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