On 9 Jun 2017, at 14:08, Peter Saint-Andre <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 6/9/17 5:37 AM, Philipp Hancke wrote: >>> However, I don't think this is particularly contentious. We have lots >>> of documents for which one of the "Authors" hasn't made any input for >>> several revisions. >> >> See the Jingle XEPs for example. I doubt the Google folks listed as >> authors have looked at this spec in a _decade_ (and at least one of them >> has left google). > > True. > >> Removing someone who did a lot of work on a specification feels bad so >> people tend to avoid doing. >> >>> I see three cases for moving Authors to a "Previous >>> Authors" section: >>> >>> a) This legal issue, which might expose authors and their employers. >>> By clearly marking that an author is not current, it should address >>> the concerns of (for example) Cisco's legal department. >>> b) The case where an Author discovers their name still against a XEP >>> and is concerned that the XEP misrepresents their views. I believe we >>> have had such cases, and although obviously Authors can already >>> request their removal in entirety, this also removes all >>> acknowledgement for previous hard work. >> >> Yes, I've had that situation with Peter once in the past. Resolved >> happily in a subsequent revision and we talked a lot thereafter :-) > > Indeed, many thanks to you. > >>> c) The case where Authors are simply unresponsive to concrete >>> proposals and stall the standards process. While Council can again >>> remove an Author entirely, this often seems like a nuclear option - as >>> if Council is punishing, rather than simply moving things along. >>> >>> I see, on the other hand, no advantage to *not* having a Previous >>> Authors section which properly acknowledges those who have put >>> considerable effort into the document. I'm also happy to list these at >>> the top of the document, maybe just like: >> >> +1 -- this seems to work well for the W3C. It is also a bigger >> acknowledgement than just adding them to the list of people who >> contributed. >> >> Also thank you for taking the time to raise this! > > IETF RFCs have a "Contributors" section in which previous authors (and, > for instance, those who have written a significant block of text) are > acknowledged. This is different from the "Acknowledgements" section. See > for instance the recently published RFC 8141: > > ### > > Acknowledgements > > Many thanks to Marc Blanchet, Leslie Daigle, Martin Duerst, Juha > Hakala, Ted Hardie, Alfred Hoenes, Paul Jones, Barry Leiba, Sean > Leonard, Larry Masinter, Keith Moore, Mark Nottingham, Julian > Reschke, Lars Svensson, Henry S. Thompson, Dale Worley, and other > participants in the URNBIS working group for their input. Alfred > Hoenes in particular edited an earlier draft version of this document > and served as co-chair of the URNBIS working group. > > Juha Hakala deserves special recognition for his dedication to > successfully completing this work, as do Andrew Newton and Melinda > Shore in their roles as working group co-chairs and Barry Leiba in > his role as area director and then as co-chair. > > Contributors > > RFC 2141, which provided the basis for the syntax portion of this > document, was authored by Ryan Moats. > > RFC 3406, which provided the basis for the namespace portion of this > document, was authored by Leslie Daigle, Dirk-Willem van Gulik, > Renato Iannella, and Patrik Faltstrom. > > ### > > There are several reasons to pursue the path that Dave has suggested, > even without legal speculation or engaging counsel that we don't have. > We've previously suggested adding a list of Maintainers, but Authors > (people who are responsible now) and Contributors (people who might have > authored or contributed significantly to the document before) feels cleaner. >
I like the contributors idea. It avoids the “Someone submitting a one-off significant patch, so should be added do Authors even though they’ll never do anything again” issue that we sometimes see. /K _______________________________________________ Standards mailing list Info: https://mail.jabber.org/mailman/listinfo/standards Unsubscribe: [email protected] _______________________________________________
