[rfc-i] Does the canonical RFC format need to be "readable" by developers and others?

[Martin Rex]

Joel M. Halpern wrote:
> 
> Rather, there should be one form that readers who are NOT active IETF 
> members, and who may not be able to read XML or SGML, can check in the 
> case of apparent inconsistencies to make sure they know what the precise 
> spec is.

I've been active in the IETF since 1995 and do not know XML (and know
about a dozen HTML tags, but only in their very basic form).

It is extremely important that not only persons reading RFCs, but
*also* persons writing I-Ds continue to *not* have a requirement
for producing or undestanding XML or HTML anywhere in the process.

Similarly, there must not be a requirement for explicit metadata.

Implied metadata in the fashion that rfcmarkup recognizes when
HTML-izingt TXT-versions of RFCs should remain perfectly sufficient.

I don't mind if folks with too much time on their hands spend a lot
of time on eye-candy, but I'm opposed to imposing more eye-candy on
every I-D/RFC author as there is now (as e.g. in the nroff format).


-Martin