Subject: Re: Query about procedure: Tombstones?

From: [email-masked] (Scott Bradner)
Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 17:12:13 -0500 (EST)

this was a good thing to do

----
The change was instituted following complaints that we were losing 
information, and made it hard to keep track of all versions of drafts - 
some subpoena requested access to some recently expired drafts, and the I-D 
directories were only producing tombstones, the drafts having been 
overwritten.

So we did a brief internal discussion and couldn't see any downside, and 
Just Did It. Guess we didn't check with everybody ... but then again, at 
the time, it seemed like an issue not worth spending all that much time 
on....

---

From: Eastlake III Donald-LDE008 <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 17:20:21 -0500

Obviously things shouldn't be prematurely expired but I think it makes some
sense to bump the version number when the files changes, including not only
when it changes to a tombstone but also if that is replaced by a revived
draft. So I would leave the current increment to the notice on expiration
(and it would be good to include the version number or file name of the
expired draft in the tombstone file) but would say that instead of storing
a revived next version draft on top of (i.e., at the same file name as) the
tombstone, the submitted revival version should be required to be
incremented from the tombstone. In fact, what version number to give a
revival draft was the only thing about the current system that ever confused
me.

Donald

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Ralph Droms
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2003 5:06 PM
To: Harald Tveit Alvestrand
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Query about procedure: Tombstones?

I had two problems...

First, draft-ietf-dhc-agentopt-radius-03.txt (of which I am a co-author) was
expired prematurely and replaced by tombstone
draft-ietf-dhc-agentopt-radius-04.txt.  I read the tombstone to mean that
draft-ietf-dhc-agentopt-radius-04.txt had expired.  I couldn't remember ever
submitting draft-ietf-dhc-agentopt-radius-04.txt, and I couldn't find any
record of submitting draft-ietf-dhc-agentopt-radius-04.txt (after searching
for a while and contacting the co-author).  I sent e-mail to internet-drafts
to check on the problem, and we discovered
draft-ietf-dhc-agentopt-radius-03.txt had been expired prematurely.  Had I
know draft-ietf-dhc-agentopt-radius-04.txt meant that
draft-ietf-dhc-agentopt-radius-03.txt was expired, I wouldn't have spent so
much time checking my records to understand where
draft-ietf-dhc-agentopt-radius-04.txt came from.

Second, draft-ietf-dhc-failover-12.txt expired (without my noticing) and I
referred to draft-ietf-dhc-failover-12.txt in a WG last call.  I got a note
pointing out that draft-ietf-dhc-failover-12.txt didn't exist and
draft-ietf-dhc-failover-13.txt was the tombstone.  Since I hadn't submitted
draft-ietf-dhc-failover-13.txt (I'm a co-author), I had to check with the
current editor to see if he had submitted draft-ietf-dhc-failover-13.txt, so
I could find out what changes he had made.  He looked in his records and
couldn't figure out where draft-ietf-dhc-failover-13.txt came from.  Again,
we wouldn't have looked around for the source of
draft-ietf-dhc-failover-13.txt if we had known it was the tombstone.

Not a big deal in either case (and I apologize for the long-winded
explanation).  But the lack of an announcement caused us
both some amount of pain...

- Ralph

At 01:50 PM 12/9/2003 -0800, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
>Ralph,
>
>--On 9. desember 2003 15:19 -0500 Ralph Droms <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>>Was this change to the tombstone procedure announced and discussed?  I
>>just
>>discovered the new procedure the hard way by tripping over conflicts
>>between
>>a reference to a draft-n that was replaced by tombstone-n+1.
>
>what was the nature of the "trip-up"?
>
>some subpoena requested access to some recently expired drafts, and the 
>I-D directories were only producing tombstones, the drafts having been 
>overwritten.
>
>the time, it seemed like an issue not worth spending all that much time on....
>
>                   Harald
>
>
>

---

From: Ralph Droms <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2003 17:33:01 -0500

No argument from me that bumping the version number is a good idea.

Just make sure the procedure is documented and announced...

- Ralph