[ih] Cluster Addressing and CIDR

[John Day]

At 15:11 -0800 1/14/03, Joe Touch wrote:
>John Day wrote:
>>>
>>>Authors will cease to present partially-complete ideas. There will 
>>>be fewer work-in-progress drafts. There will, in summary, be less 
>>>of this 'good or bad' research to preserve.
>>
>>This is not the case and has not been the case with other groups.
>
>There are some people (myself included) who will cease to publish 
>drafts. That decreases (by definition) the set of what is published; 
>to the extent that others care, it will further decrease that set.

Somehow I doubt that ;-)  but statistically I think you would find 
that the number who would not submit contributions would be 
insignificant.  And since no one person's ideas are so important that 
the rest can not get on without them, it is doubtful they would be 
missed.  This effort is not personal, it is stochastic.

>
>>I have not noticed that the fact this material is available in the 
>>group's paper trail has any effect on the amount or quality of the 
>>contributions.
>
>That's nearly impossible to measure. We have no series that was 
>explicitly not archived then archived to compare. All we have are 
>different communities right now.

Actually, not true.  If you look at IEEE, T1, ISO, ITU, ANSI, ABA, 
IEC, and many other groups you will find that such paper trails exist 
and perhaps not readily available they are available.

>
>...
>>>The thing that makes IDs unique is _exactly_ the fact that they 
>>>are NOT archived. Were that property to disappear, there would be 
>>>a void.
>>
>>No the problem we have is there is a void.  To modify an old adage, 
>>those who can not know history are doomed to repeat it.  Actually 
>>now that you mention it that may explain alot.
>
>There always was, and continues to be a path for publication that 
>some draft authors have chosen and others have not. Draft authors 
>can always submit documents for Informational RFC; some have, others 
>have not. Although there are some submissions which have been 
>rejected (every system has its minimum standards), overall we 
>already have a solution to this problem, and it doesn't involve 
>archiving all drafts for historical purposes.
>
>I agree that the world is less informed by not having the 
>intermediate forms of "the Shining", e.g. That is as it has been - 
>the choice of the author. All we do by archiving drafts is to take 
>the ephemeral track away.

This is not at all the case.  Science is a much different process 
than writing a novel.  The exploration of the domain of inquiry and 
the process by which it takes place is as important as the final 
answer.  More often than not the process may provide more 
understanding for the next problem than the answer ever will.

Take care,
John