[ih] Cluster Addressing and CIDR

[David P. Reed]

The long-term history of ideas is hurt by the non-preservation of ID's, 
etc.   The ideas had influence, almost certainly, even if they turned out 
to be weak or "wrong".

One of the problems with scientific progress is the lack of documentation 
of experiments that didn't pan out, because the authors are presumed to 
have "failed" and want to avoid embarrassment.

Most of us, if we are honest, have learned far more from making mistakes 
and debugging them.  Why then, do we refuse to pass on our hard-won 
knowledge?   This is not because of science, but because of ego-driven fear.

At 01:15 PM 1/14/2003 +0100, Simone Molendini wrote:

>>>So, IDs could be as valuable as RFCs.
>>>Then, why imposing a 6 month limit for IDs, when diskspace is so
>>>cheap?
>>
>>The reason for ID disappearance has nothing to do with space.
>>
>>The IDs are deliberately ephemeral, intended to foster the open exchange 
>>of partial ideas. Establishing them as archival from the start imposes a 
>>hurdle that was percieved to inhibit this exchange.
>>
>>Some ideas do fall by the wayside, ideas which could have been archived 
>>as Informational RFCs, technical reports, or published papers. In cases 
>>where that has not been done, it was the authors' choice not to pursue 
>>that route.
>>
>>FYI...
>>
>>Joe
>
>You're right, but having a repository of the old drafts means saving 
>almost all the (good or bad) Internet research in a much more complete 
>manner than archiving the RFCs.
>
>IDs could be tagged as "WORK IN PROGRESS" and shifted to "HISTORICAL" once 
>they expire after 6 months; these drafts could be saved into two different 
>directories.
>
>I have a private collection of the drafts published in the last years: 
>looking at the evolution of a protocol (e.g. CIDR) is a very useful exercise.
>
>BTW:
>Does the copyright prevent a site from allowng the access to old IDs ? 
>Does a (non-official) repository of old drafts exist in the Internet?
>
>regards,
>Simone