Subject: [Tools-team] Some input on the I-D publication process (Was: Fw: Diff between IETF drafts)

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 22:07:33 +0200

Hi,

	I got this (below) from Harald.  Should we consider
making diff-generation a part of the I-D publication process?

I've seen automatic diff generation as potentially part of a workgroup
toolset, but maybe that is not the best way to see it?

	Henrik

-------- Begin forwarded message: --------

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 21:39:09 +0200
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
To: Benoit Claise <[email-masked]>
Cc: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Diff between IETF drafts

Benoit,

thanks for the tip!

Henrik - the tools team should take this as input to the discussion of the 
I-D publication process!

             Harald

--On 30. august 2004 14:13 +0200 Benoit Claise <[email-masked]> wrote:

>
> Hi Harald,
>
> Some food for thoughts...
>
> I've always been thinking the drafts review process in the IETF is not
> quite efficient, as we have to trust the editor summary email (if any)
> for all the changes applied to the new draft version ... which most of
> the time implies reading the entire draft... which causes delay in the
> review...
> So, as an editor, I've started to include the a "diff" file between the
> two previous versions, based on htmlwdiff. Until someone refers me to
> this web site, administered by Henrik Levkowetz: diffs between draft
> revisions are automatically created on
> http://ietf.levkowetz.com/drafts/ipfix/ every time a new revision of an
> IPFIX working group document is discovered in the official
> internet-drafts directory (using the draft-ietf-ipfix- name heuristic).
>
> In order to speed up the IETF process, you might consider adding this
> little extra step:
> - either as a facility for all IETF participants (maybe a task for the WG
> chairs to make it's taken care of?)
> - either as part of the publication procedure by the
> [email-masked]
>
> Regards, Benoit.
>
>
>

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---

From: Alex Rousskov <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:36:27 -0600 (MDT)

Henrik,

 	I strongly support archiving all draft versions on IETF site. 
Generating diffs against any two versions (and last two versions by 
default) would be a simple and effective use of such an archive. I 
think this is out of ID submission draft scope, but hopefully within 
the TOOLs team scope. This probably belongs to the Documents 
Repository interface.

 	Personally, I think it is silly to remove expired drafts, but 
if I am the only person thinking that (on the TOOLs team), we can at 
least recommend that draft versions are accessible until the latest 
version expires. While still silly (IMHO), it might gain more support 
from IETF than a consistent "all posted IDs are accessible at IETF" 
policy.

 	If neither flies with IESG, we can at least recommend 
development or adoption of the draft diff generation tool. Drafts are 
not programs, and it is not an easy exercise today to generate a good 
diff! A public draft-diff tool should be recommended even if IETF 
provides past versions and diffs, of course.

Thanks,

Alex.

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 22:08:26 +0200

Hi Alex,

> the TOOLs team scope. This probably belongs to the Documents 

I agree.

> from IETF than a consistent "all posted IDs are accessible at IETF" 

Yes.  (One thought is that we could leave the official draft repository
with the current mechanism of draft removal after expiery, but if we
provide a different cvs / svn like repository for rapid changes, it
would be possible to trace a draft and draft diffs back there, even if
the draft no longer existed in the regular draft repository.)

> diff! 

As I've been maintaining one draft diff tool, I know :-)

> A public draft-diff tool should be recommended even if IETF 

Yes, definitely.

	Henrik