Subject: [Tools-discuss] Question about I-D version numbers

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:42:36 -0500

Out of curiosity, what is going to happen when the version
number in an I-D reaches -99 and then a new version shows up?
As far as I know, we have never discussed or dealt with the
issue.   But Ian  Hickson seems to have a pattern of posting
three to five versions of draft-hixie-thewebsocketprotocol in
bursts within a 24 - 36 hour period.  He is up to -74 now and a
very rough extrapolation from the sequence of new drafts over
the last several months suggests that he will be in the 90s
before the winter is over, possibly even before IETF 77.

Not my problem, but I thought you might like the heads up :-(

   john

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From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:11:26 +0100

Hi John,

> Not my problem, but I thought you might like the heads up :-(

I've checked the current submission tool code, and it should refuse
drafts numbered higher than -99.  My suggestion is to submit a
replacement draft at that point.  Maybe something like

	draft-hixie-thewebsocketprotocol-98
	draft-hixie-thewebsocketprotocol-99
	draft-hixie-thewebsocketprotocol-1-00 
		(replacing draft-hixie-thewebsocketprotocol)
	draft-hixie-thewebsocketprotocol-1-01

etc.

	Henrik

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From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:53:43 -0500

--On Thursday, February 04, 2010 15:11 +0100 Henrik Levkowetz
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> bursts within a 24 - 36 hour period.  He is up to -74 now and
>> a very rough extrapolation from the sequence of new drafts
>> over the last several months suggests that he will be in the
>> 90s before the winter is over, possibly even before IETF 77.
>> 
> I've checked the current submission tool code, and it should
> refuse drafts numbered higher than -99.

As long as it does that cleanly, there should be no problem.

>  My suggestion is to
> submit a replacement draft at that point.  Maybe something like
> 

Sounds good.  I'll pass it along.
thanks,
    john

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From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:27:48 -0500

It would be useful if the various databases were able to easily and/or 
automatically track the renaming of -99 to -1-00, so that 
tools.ietf.org's rfcdiff would continue working, the "<"/">" feature in 
tools.ietf.org/html pages continued to work, etc.

	Tony Hansen

John C Klensin wrote:
> _______________________________________________
> Tools-discuss mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tools-discuss

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From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:35:40 -0800

> tools.ietf.org/html pages continued to work, etc.

If they did, wouldn't it be easier to just have them support -100?

However, I would suggest that any doc that gets to that high number is
doing something badly broken somewhere, and a fresh version starting at
-00 is a good idea anyway. 100 revisions is the kind of past history
best deleted.

Joe

>>>     draft-hixie-thewebsocketprotocol-1-00         (replacing
>>> draft-hixie-thewebsocketprotocol)

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From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 23:40:35 +1100

Have we suggested this to Ian? 

:)

--
Mark Nottingham     http://www.mnot.net/

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From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:28:07 -0500

> Have we suggested this to Ian? 

Mark,

While I'm concerned about running past the two-digit limit, Ian
isn't going to run out in the next month or two.   To me, the
important part of Henrik's message is that the tools are not
going to fail at -99 or accept -100.   Better to know that now
than to risk a crisis later.

I think Henrik's suggestion of "new name" is the right one.
However, if I understand what Ian is doing, this won't be the
last time, and a standardized convention will probably serve us
well in the long term and avoid needing to complexify
arrangements for links to previously-named versions.   Advice
about such a convention is an IETF problem, and, yes, I've
pinged the Apps ADs on this.  Unless Ian is likely to generate
25 more versions in the next month or two (he hasn't been nearly
that fast), there is lots of time for the IESG to either decide
something or decide that every author who runs into the issue
should make up his or her own convention.

      john

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From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:56:06 +0100

Hi Tony,

> tools.ietf.org/html pages continued to work, etc.

I'm already complementing the submission-time labelling (by the
submitter) of drafts as replacements with a heuristic generation
of replacement information -- similar to the one Lars Eggert
regularly posts to the wgchairs list.  It would be trivial to
recognize this new pattern and add the relevant 'replaces/replaced-by'
information.  The diffs already works backwards across replacement
draft boundaries (although I know of one rfcdiff bug related to
this which I'll fix soon.).

The same kind of information should also, as you suggest, be
built into the tools surrounding the datatracker database.

	Henrik