Subject: [Tools-discuss] Re: I-D woes

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 23:42:24 +0200

Hi David,

on 2006-06-29 23:22 [email-masked] said the following:
...
> I have a very simple request that should fix most of this:
> ----
> Would the folks on the CC: line figure out how to coordinate the publicly
> available version of idnits on tools.ietf.org with the secretariat's tools
> so that a draft that passes idnits will pass the secretariat's automated
> checks if the draft is submitted within a reasonable time period (e.g.,
> 48 hours) of the idnits run?
> ----
> idnits is a godsend by comparison to what we used to have to put up
> with - let's use it for all it's worth.

The secretariat's developers have by now started to look at implementing
RFC 4228, "Requirements for an IETF Draft Submission Toolset", which
defines a toolset which automates draft submission.  One particular
requirement in this RFC is the following:

Section 7.5.2, paragraph 2:

"  1.  All automatically testable nits in the "ID-NITS" document at
       <http://www.ietf.org/ID-Checklist.html> (R116/b) and
       automatically testable guidelines at
       <http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-guidelines.txt> (R157/b).  The
       Toolset should use external tools to check these nits and
       guidelines rather than embed checking code (R117/a).  Hint:
       Henrik Levkowetz's idnits tool can be used
       (http://tools.ietf.org/tools/idnits/) and other tools can be
       written or adopted."

Note in particular the requirement on using *external* tools for nits and
guideline checks.

I don't know what the story is behind the current automated checks and
the changes in the checks; but we're working towards using an evolved
version of idnits as part of the submission process, rather than having the
automated checks be done by a different tool than that which is publicly
available to authors for pre-submission checks.

Hope that helps and makes sense...

Regards,

	Henrik

_______________________________________________
Tools-discuss mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tools-discuss

---

From: Jeffrey Hutzelman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 20:24:22 -0400

On Thursday, June 29, 2006 04:49:18 PM -0700 Andy Bierman 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> [email-masked] wrote:
> ....
>> available version of idnits on tools.ietf.org with the secretariat's
>> tools so that a draft that passes idnits will pass the secretariat's
>> automated checks if the draft is submitted within a reasonable time
>> period (e.g., 48 hours) of the idnits run?
>> ----
> Although I fully support the proactive direction that the 'idnits'
> tool represents, I do not understand why Internet Drafts should ever
> be rejected at all (okay, except for all the IPR legalese).
> This can only serve to hinder the progress of WGs.

An I-D with excessively long lines or pages, or not in plain text, or not 
using the required character set, or with broken line endines, etc. can 
hinder the progress of WG's.  We can change those requirements, if we ever 
get consensus to do so (don't hold your breath), but until then, people 
have expectations which cause problems when they are violated.

However, that's a fairly minor issue in the grand scheme of things.

Much of the boilerplate which is required for submission of _any_ I-D 
relates to the author acknowledging certain rights granted to the IETF. 
These requirements are not based on hypothetical concerns, but on actual 
cases where the work of the IETF was seriously hindered because of things 
like a document editor who didn't like the direction things were going 
declaring that he held all rights to the document.  I wasn't active in the 
IETF at that time, but if I recall correctly, the working group in question 
ended up being forced to select an alternate technology.

That incident, and others like it, are the reason behind the "Note Well" 
included in your packet every meeting, and the requirements in BCP's 78 and 
79, and the rule that no I-D can be published without meeting those 
requirements.

-- Jeffrey T. Hutzelman (N3NHS) <[email-masked]>
   Sr. Research Systems Programmer
   School of Computer Science - Research Computing Facility
   Carnegie Mellon University - Pittsburgh, PA

---

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:49:18 -0700

I-Ds submitted for publication consideration to the IESG
should pass every single id-nit.  For a work-in-progress,
this is pointless, and total headwind to an author.

> Thanks,
> --David

Andy

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 16:17:08 +0200

Hi Andy,

on 2006-06-30 01:49 Andy Bierman said the following:
...
> should pass every single id-nit.

Right.

>  For a work-in-progress,

In the specification of the submission tool in RFC 4228
the appropriate distinction is made between the requirements of
   http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-guidelines.txt,
which apply to all submitted drafts, and the requirements of the
publication checklist,
   http://www.ietf.org/ID-Checklist.html .

Idnits was originally focused only on the latter, but people gradually
started to use it more generally, and ask for features from the former.

I have already planned to add switches to idnits which will control
whether it will check only against requirements from one or the other
of these two, in order to support use within the 4228 submission tool.

Having separable checking functionality through the switches may also
help during the pre-submission checks.  The current version of the tool
simply lists the ID-Checklist checks and the 1id-guidelines checks under
different output sections, and leaves it up to the author to know
whether he's submitting a final draft which is a publication candidate,
or some earlier version.

Regards,

	Henrik