Re: Topic drift Re: An Internet Draft as reference material

[Grenville Armitage]

Keith Moore wrote:
        [..]
> historically IETF has discouraged even external references to
> I-Ds by removing I-Ds from the repository after six months.

Discouraged != Can Prevent, so again I wonder what we're
achieving in this thread.

> if IETF starts providing a reliable archive of I-Ds, I-Ds
> will be referenced more often in external documents

I dont believe it will make any difference. When I cite
an I-D today I do so to indicate a historical marker,
regardless of whether the source material will evolve
or disappear. Only the most misleading of citation
habits, or naieve of readers, will be under any illusions
that an archive of I-Ds represents any stamp of technical
merit. We have CD-ROMs and websites of previous IETF
meetings - do you not consider these to already provide
a distributed record of the ramblings of the IETF?

cheers,
gja