Subject: [Tools-discuss] idnits improvement idea

From: Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 11:46:27 +0200

Hi,

I just realized that a draft I'm currently reviewing (draft-ietf-rddp- 
mpa-03.txt) has a non-standard boilerplate that idnits-1.96 doesn't  
currently detect. Specifically, the authors have included an  
additional disclaimer section on the last page, and have placed the  
required paragraphs under unusual headings.

Regardless of whether this is OK in this particular case or not, it'd  
be great if idnits would throw a warning in such cases that something  
may be fishy.

Lars
-- 
Lars Eggert                                     NEC Network Laboratories

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From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 14:41:33 +0200

Hi Lars,

> be great if idnits would throw a warning in such cases that something  

Right, I understand.  I'm not sure how to make this in a reasonably
foolproof way - it's easier to recognize the presence of fixed boiler-
plate than to recognize text which is significant in this context,
but could use any arbitrary words at all...

I'll think a bit about this.

	Henrik

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From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 17:28:01 +0200

Hi again,

  idnits v1.97 has a first cut at a mechanism for identifying
additional boilerplate-related / copyright-related text, but
I'm not sure how large a percentage of cases of added legalese
it will catch in practice.  It does catch the added text in
draft-ietf-rddp-mpa-03.txt.

Feedback on how this works in practice will be appreciated.

Regards,

	Henrik

---

From: Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 13:27:42 +0200

> draft-ietf-rddp-mpa-03.txt.

It does find some stuff - great!

But :-) it also has a small bug where it doesn't match the  
boilerplate correctly if that breaks across pages (as in draft-ietf- 
rmt-bb-tfmcc-07.txt).

Lars

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From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 13:31:43 +0200

Hi Lars,

> boilerplate correctly if that breaks across pages (as in draft-ietf- 

This draft is not handled correctly, but the bug is that idnits fails
to strip the header lines properly from this draft.  Boilerplate
breaking across pages is in itself no problem if the header is
correctly stripped :-)

I've added another header pattern to the header/footer stripping code
to handle the draft you mention, and similar ones.  Available in
idnits v1.99 which I'm putting online in a minute.

Regards,

	Henrik

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From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 07:27:16 -0700

Hi, Henrik,

The template for RFC2119 boilerplate has a bug; there is an extra space
before "RFC 2119".

Thanks,

Joe

output
----------------------------------------------------------
  Miscellaneous warnings:
  - The document seems to lack the recommended RFC 2119 boilerplate, even
    if it appears to use RFC 2119 keywords -- however, there's a
paragraph with
    a matching beginning. Boilerplate error?

    RFC 2119 paragraph 2 text:
    "The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
    "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
    document are to be interpreted as described in  RFC 2119."

    ... text found in draft:
    "The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
    "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
    document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].")
...................................................^

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 03:58:46 +0200

Hi Joe,

Arrgh.  Quite right you are.

Should be fixed now, in version 1.100

Regards,

	Henrik

on 2006-05-26 16:27 Joe Touch said the following:
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

---

From: Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 17:43:16 +0200

> Should be fixed now, in version 1.100

There may still be an issue:

   * The document seems to lack an RFC 3978 Section 5.1 IPR Disclosure
     Acknowledgement -- however, there's a paragraph with a matching  
beginning.
     Boilerplate error?

     RFC 3978 Section 5.1 text:
     "By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any
     applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware
     have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes
     aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79."

     ... text found in draft:
     "By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any
     applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware
     have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes
     aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79.  
This
....................................................................^
     document may not be modified, and derivative works of it may not be
     created, except to publish it as an RFC and to translate it into
     languages other than English.")

Lars

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 18:02:56 +0200

Hi Lars,

  It looks like the text below points to the wrong position in the template
code, (at the full stop, rather than the space after it) but otherwise I
think it's right about the template not being the regular 3978 template, yes?

	Henrik

---

From: Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 18:10:55 +0200

> think it's right about the template not being the regular 3978  

But it's an addition that is explicitly allowed by Section 5.2 of  
RFC3978.

Lars

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 18:30:54 +0200

Hi Lars,

> But it's an addition that is explicitly allowed by Section 5.2 of  

Yes, but what http://www.ietf.org/ID-Checklist.html requires is the
IPR Disclosure, verbatim from [RFC3978] section 5.1.

So I think the indication is correct here...

	Henrik

---

From: Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 00:11:23 +0200

> So I think the indication is correct here...

Hm. We may have found a discrepancy between the checklist and current  
procedure here!

I have been submitting drafts with the "no derivatives" clause for  
about two years now (after having an argument with a non-IETF person  
who claimed that it was OK to copy parts from one of my IDs into  
other documents without asking, because it didn't include that  
clause), and the secretariat has always accepted them.

Lars

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 01:32:09 +0200

Hi Lars,

> clause), and the secretariat has always accepted them.

Yes. But...

The ID-Checklist isn't checked by the secretariat, and isn't a
requirement for submitting an ID; it's a checklist for drafts
submitted for publication as RFC.

The document the secretariat goes by is the ID-guidelines
(http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-guidelines.html) which has less strict
requirements in some respect, but also has some requirements which aren't
mentioned in the ID-Checklist.

idnits started out as a tool with the ambition to check section 1.1 and
1.2 of the ID-checklist, but has gradually also acquired more and more
id-guidelines checks, and things like checking unused and undefined
references.

The output is split in two parts, first one handling ID-Checklist
issues, then one handling id-guidelines issues (and recently the
experimental warnings at the end).

Possibly idnits should have switches to control whether it should
check the checklist, the guidelines, and the extra checks.  I have
no idea which mode should be the default, since idnits usage seems
to be shifting from the original early adopters, ADs, via chairs
using it before sending a draft up for publication, to now more and
more people using it before submitting even early versions.

(As an aside, the difference between the checklist and the guidelines
are seldom pointed out clearly, and since we don't have one common
archival document series for stuff like this, it's not obvious where
you find these, and who should apply which.  I think Harald's ipod
draft is a step in the right direction...)

Regards,

	Henrik