Subject: [Tools-discuss] better access to ipr notifications?

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:21:32 +0100

Hi!  Would it be possible to offer access to the IETF IPR notifications
in a better format than html on https web pages?  Something like rsync
of raw data would be ideal for me.  Even plain http would be more
efficient.

Right now I have to download the entire tree below
https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/ daily to be sure to get all
modifications.

I don't know whether the tools team is responsible for the ipr page, but
since you are doing such a great job on making everything else in IETF
easily accessible, perhaps the ipr page could be your next target. ;)

Thanks,
/Simon
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From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:37:17 +0100

Hi Simon,

> easily accessible, perhaps the ipr page could be your next target. ;)

The IPR information sits in the ietf database, and the current IPR pages
are dynamically generated.  However, it sounds like a marvellous idea for
the Philly Code Sprint to provide the information in the database in a
format which would be more easily accessible.

I've done some work on a table-format prototype,
  (http://merlot.tools.ietf.org:31415/ipr/list-specific/)
but for your purpose XML or CSV would maybe be better?  Would you like to
propose a format?

Regards,

	Henrik

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From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:39:16 +0100

> but for your purpose XML or CSV would maybe be better?  Would you  

Sure!  What kind of information is actually stored in the database?   
The html pages are somewhat opaque, and it isn't clear to me if each  
field has its own database column, or whether all ipr information (in  
html) for a particular id is stored as one big entry.

As for xml or csv, I don't have a strong preference.  If html code is  
stored in the database, xml will be rather ugly.

If you give an example of a database row for one ipr notification, I  
can suggest some text format for it.  Are you using a sql database?

A big question for me is also whether the information is immutable,  
or whether each ipr notification can be modified.  This affects  
whether I need to mirror all ipr information every time, and time  
stamp it, or whether I can just look for new id's.  It seems right  
now that notifications can be modified in the sense that they can be  
deleted.  I wonder if these kind of questions may be answered by any  
IETF IPR policy document.

/Simon

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From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 10:39:22 +0200

Simon Josefsson wrote:

> Hi!  Would it be possible to offer access to the IETF IPR 
> notifications in a better format than html on https web pages?  
> Something like rsync of raw data would be ideal for me.  Even 
> plain http would be more efficient.

It's not exactly raw data, but if you're interested in 
what's new, there is an Atom feed:

https://datatracker.ietf.org/feed/ipr/

Best regards,
Pasi

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From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 09:59:02 +0100

Hi Simon,

> On 20 feb 2008, at 00.37, Henrik Levkowetz wrote:
...
> html) for a particular id is stored as one big entry.

Each field has its own column.  Since the code for the part of the
datatracker which is implemented in Django is openly available, the
easiest thing for me is to point you to the file which defines the
Django interface to the IPR database table.  I realize this is not
necessarily the easiest for you, but it will give you pretty complete
data ;-)

In this python file, each class which extends 'models.Model' defines
an object class corresponding to a table, and each attribute corresponds
to a column.  Hope you can take it from there.  (Oh, and it isn't
necessarily pretty -- we have a database schema cleanup waiting to
happen...):

http://www3.tools.ietf.org/tools/ietfdb/browser/branch/2.00/ietf/ipr/models.py

> can suggest some text format for it.  Are you using a sql database?

Yes, it's an sql database, but there's multiple rows involved in just
one notification.

> IETF IPR policy document.

Don't know about a policy document for this, but you're right in that
the interface is done so that people submitting a notification have to
submit a new one in order to change things; the notifications aren't
modified once they have been entered.

	Henrik

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From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 11:22:00 +0100

> https://datatracker.ietf.org/feed/ipr/

Ah, neat, I didn't know about that one.  However, it seems it doesn't
contain all information -- for example, sometimes it seems older ipr
notifications are modified (deleted), which wouldn't be noticed by that
feed.  Or would it?

Thanks,
/Simon

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From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:29:35 +0200

Simon Josefsson wrote:

> notifications are modified (deleted), which wouldn't be 
> noticed by that feed.  Or would it?

Based on a quick look at the source code, I would guess the answer
is no, the feed won't notice deleted IPR disclosures (at least
not unless submitted_date field is updated when deleting).

http://www3.tools.ietf.org/tools/ietfdb/browser/branch/2.00/ietf/ipr/fee
ds.py

Best regards,
Pasi