Subject: [link-relations] NEW RELATION REQUEST

From: Ian Hickson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:15:56 +0000 (UTC)

o Relation Name: pingback
 o Description: Gives the address of the pingback server that handles 
   pingbacks to the current document.
 o Reference: http://www.hixie.ch/specs/pingback/pingback
 o Notes: (none)
 o Application Data: (none)

This registration template is not included in the specification since the 
specification was published in 2002. I hope that's ok.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 12:34:11 +1000

Overall looks good; two issues:

1) the template should be in the draft.
2) a document published on a personal web site doesn't meet the requirement for the reference to be an RFC or Open Standard. 

RE #2: there are a couple of things you could do to address this, but probably the easiest would be to submit it to the RFC Editor for publication as an independent submission Informational RFC. If you'd like details on how to do this, just ask.

Cheers,

On 11/08/2010, at 7:15 AM, Ian Hickson wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> link-relations mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/link-relations

--
Mark Nottingham     http://www.mnot.net/

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From: Ian Hickson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 03:22:04 +0000 (UTC)

> 1) the template should be in the draft.

The draft is frozen. Is there no way to register a link relation for old 
drafts? The HTML4 relations were registered without modifying HTML4, no?

> 2) a document published on a personal web site doesn't meet the 
> requirement for the reference to be an RFC or Open Standard.
>
> RE #2: there are a couple of things you could do to address this, but 
> probably the easiest would be to submit it to the RFC Editor for 
> publication as an independent submission Informational RFC. If you'd 
> like details on how to do this, just ask.

I'm not especially interested in publishing this document through the IETF 
process (it would appear to be entirely busywork with no upside); does 
that mean that it isn't possible to register this relation?

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From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:35:25 +1000

> drafts? The HTML4 relations were registered without modifying HTML4, no?

Yes - they were registered in an RFC. 

> that mean that it isn't possible to register this relation?

If you meet the "RFC or Open Standard" test, it's possible to register it.

Note that publishing on the independent submission Informational RFC track isn't really "through the IETF process" -- it's at the discretion of the RFC Editor, which is a separate entity. See:
  http://www.rfc-editor.org/indsubs.html
  http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4846
  http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5742

While I can't say that it's necessarily a quick process, the amount of work involved (beyond draft formatting) is relatively low, and there are a few upsides, including:

1) RFCs are institutionally guaranteed not to change over time; you say that the spec is frozen, but there aren't checks or balances, nor conventions in place, to prevent future changes.
2) When you die and your Web site disappears, an RFC will have a better chance of persisting in an unambiguous state.

Cheers,

---

From: Ian Hickson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 04:50:07 +0000 (UTC)

On Wed, 11 Aug 2010, Mark Nottingham wrote:
> > 
> > The draft is frozen. Is there no way to register a link relation for 
> > old drafts? The HTML4 relations were registered without modifying 
> > HTML4, no?
> 

I see.

> > I'm not especially interested in publishing this document through the 
> > IETF process (it would appear to be entirely busywork with no upside); 
> > does that mean that it isn't possible to register this relation?
> 

But there's no way to meet it that doesn't involve lots of busy work?

> Note that publishing on the independent submission Informational RFC 
> track isn't really "through the IETF process" -- it's at the discretion 
> of the RFC Editor, which is a separate entity. See:
> While I can't say that it's necessarily a quick process, the amount of 
> work involved (beyond draft formatting) is relatively low

Draft formatting is plenty of work already. All I'm trying to do here is 
make people who are interested in knowing what "pingback" means be able to 
find out, and make people who might be tempted to use that name aware of 
the existence of the keyword's existing use. Having to republish an eight 
year old spec seems like a lot of overhead.

> and there are a few upsides, including:
> 
> 1) RFCs are institutionally guaranteed not to change over time; you say 
> that the spec is frozen, but there aren't checks or balances, nor 
> conventions in place, to prevent future changes.

True, but presumably that's actually a good thing -- it means that if 
reality changes, and the spec is updated accordingly, the registration 
will still track it. It would seem that preventing changes is a bug, not a 
feature. (The spec is only currently frozen because Stuart and I don't 
think it needs changing at the moment and don't want to ramp up the 
process of changing it.)

> 2) When you die and your Web site disappears, an RFC will have a better 
> chance of persisting in an unambiguous state.

I don't think there's any risk of the pingback spec's state becoming 
ambiguous. If hixie.ch goes down, and people still care about the spec, 
someone can put up a copy elsewhere and update the registration. That 
doesn't seem like a problem of any practical importance.

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 11:57:55 +0200

Maybe there's middle ground:

- have short RFC that defines the link relation in general

- have that document reference the "old" spec for the description of a 
specific pingback service implementation.

Best regards, Julian

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From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:05:50 +1000

I don't think so. The requirement in "Specification Required" is for the specification to be both "in sufficient detail so that interoperability between independent implementations is possible" and "permanent and readily available":

>       Specification Required - Values and their meanings must be
>             documented in a permanent and readily available public
>             specification, in sufficient detail so that interoperability
>             between independent implementations is possible[...]  
>             The intention behind
>             "permanent and readily available" is that a document can
>             reasonably be expected to be findable and retrievable long
>             after IANA assignment of the requested value.  Publication
>             of an RFC is an ideal means of achieving this requirement,
>             but Specification Required is intended to also cover the
>             case of a document published outside of the RFC path.  For
>             RFC publication, the normal RFC review process is expected
>             to provide the necessary review for interoperability, though
>             the Designated Expert may be a particularly well-qualified
>             person to perform such a review.

Ian, I understand that your argument is that even publishing it on your Web site makes it "permanent and readily available," since it is archived, copied by others, indexed by Google, etc. While that's good enough for your purposes, historically the IETF / RFC Editor have been reluctant to use URIs at all, much less URIs to personal Web sites to define protocols.

I notice that your document is in the W3C format -- have you considered sending it to them as a Member submission? Alternatively, I'd suggest reformatting as an Internet-Draft and submitting that.

Regards,

On 13/08/2010, at 7:57 PM, Julian Reschke wrote:

> - have that document reference the "old" spec for the description of a specific pingback service implementation.
> 
> Best regards, Julian

---

From: Ian Hickson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:05:03 +0000 (UTC)

On Fri, 13 Aug 2010, Mark Nottingham wrote:
>
> Ian, I understand that your argument is that even publishing it on your 
> Web site makes it "permanent and readily available," since it is 
> archived, copied by others, indexed by Google, etc. While that's good 
> enough for your purposes, historically the IETF / RFC Editor have been 
> reluctant to use URIs at all, much less URIs to personal Web sites to 
> define protocols.
> 
> I notice that your document is in the W3C format -- have you considered 
> sending it to them as a Member submission? Alternatively, I'd suggest 
> reformatting as an Internet-Draft and submitting that.

For all intents and purposes, there's nobody working on that spec. I just 
wanted to register the relation because people use it and I figured 
documenting that was an important part of the purpose of the registry. I 
don't have the bandwidth to do anything with it beyond that.

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:12:25 +1000

You didn't answer my question, Ian. Have you considered publishing it through the W3C as a Working Group Note? 

Last I checked, all you need is consensus in the WG to publish the note.

Alternatively, you can, through your employer, get it published as a Member Submission.

Neither of these solutions would require editorial work, and only a minimum of process work. If that's not workable, you can (again) publish it as an RFC with minimal overhead (as described before). 

Yet another method of moving forward would be for a third party to do the work (either editorial or process) to get this published. However, the copyright statement in the document prevents this currently; would you be willing to let someone do this for you?

As this shows, there are plenty of low-overhead avenues for you to have the document published in a manner that's permanent and readily available. Doing so would also give you an opportunity to register the HTTP header you're using.

Although we haven't said so explicitly yet, the discussion has clearly led us to rejecting the request. I'm sympathetic to your goal of getting existing relations published, but the process needs to be observed -- for good reasons, even if you disagree with them.

If you decide to publish the document in one of the paths described above, or find an alternate venue you'd like us to consider, please re-submit the request. 

Regards,

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From: Ian Hickson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:09:41 +0000 (UTC)

> through the W3C as a Working Group Note?

The only work I plan on doing to the Pingback specification is adding 
links to translations as people write them (four so far). I have no 
interest in doing anything else. I'm certainly not going to spend the time 
to rewrite it in another format, or try to wrangle it into a form the W3C 
pubteam would accept, and so on, just so that we can register the link 
relation. The specification is fine as it is, and people are using the 
link relation with no trouble.

I'm happy to send an e-mail or fill in a form or edit a page or some such 
to register the relation, in the interests of documenting reality. 
However, there is really no benefit to doing any more than that.

I have very little doubt that I am alone in this. I think the suggestions 
to change where the spec is published shows a view of the importance of 
the link relation registry that is at odds with the view that most people 
minting link relations will have.