Re: Please remove RFCs from the documentation in Debian packages

[Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl>]

On Sat, Jul 05, 2003 at 11:41:51AM +1000, Brian May wrote:
> Couldn't you write a new document along the lines of "This is based on
> RFC1341 with the following exceptions ...."?

Tell that to the authors of RFC2616 :-)
Sometimes it's very valuable to NOT have people reading the old version
first, for example because it's full of information that is almost but
entirely not correct.  Then you want them to instead read a consistent
presentation of the new standard.

Now, you might want to say that only the IETF should be allowed to
produce something like RFC2616.  That's fine as long as the IETF is
the smart and effective body it is now and everyone is welcome to
join it.  But how do you know this will still be the case 20 years
later?  The arguments against forking standards are pretty similar
to the arguments against forking gcc -- in both cases it's generally
a bad idea, but the health of a free system depends on it being
potentially possible.

Richard Braakman