One editor, new contributors section.

[sgillies]

An attempt to address "Author Overload", which the RFC Editor is sure to recognize in our draft. See https://www.rfc-editor.org/old/policy.html#policy.authlist. Makes sense to me.

As you can see, I've created a new Contributors section and moved author names, affiliations, and contact info there. I've also made it clear that this is their work.

Pandoc2rfc was letting me down on the author listing, so I reverted to XML.

/cc @martinthomson @dret

[sgillies]

Circle-CI, I :heart: you: https://circle-artifacts.com/gh/geojson/draft-geojson/113/artifacts/0/home/ubuntu/draft-geojson/draft.html

The new contributors section is here: https://circle-artifacts.com/gh/geojson/draft-geojson/113/artifacts/0/home/ubuntu/draft-geojson/draft.html#rfc.section.13

[sthagen]

Hm, I clicked on above Circle-CI, I ... link and it showed the single editor version, but that carries instead of draft-ietf-geojson-03 still a draft-ietf-geojson-00

W.r.t. "oh we have 6 authors - shouldn't these be five as some grep in the mentioned text on ietf authors shows" - I am to tired to even think about that crap. So ship it this way, if the others are ok with it.

But I think: The six author list plainly documented the real facts: Five from the start, one pulling it apart, and we had a lift-off! The arguments of corporate employee name dropping is so far off topic and from the reality of this result of a years long community effort of real people, but as I said: For now, personally I am tired to even think about these administrative idiosyncrasies. Real thanks from me to all the other authors and especially to You @sgillies for this nice standards candidate.

[sgillies]

@sdrees Thanks.

The draft version regression tells me my branch might be out of sync... I'll check closely.

[sthagen]

Cool! Yes, that would be good.

[adoyle]

Should the CC-BY-3.0 be honored? We do reference the original, but not with a URL and not with a link to the license as required.

Something like:

Material in this document was adapted with changes from http://geojson.org/geojson-spec.html [GJ2008] which is licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

[sthagen]

I think, @adoyle is right on this one, ... but I am neither a native English man nor a lawyer :8ball: .

[adoyle]

I agree with @sdrees six-author rant and agree with his praise of Sean for his hard work.

[mpdaly]

More agreeing with @sdrees and @adoyle: ranting and praising.

We should definitely reference the CC-BY licence, otherwise we'll have to sue ourselves, or something.

[martinthomson]

Definitely include the text proposed in https://github.com/geojson/draft-geojson/pull/200#issuecomment-212523701

[tschaub]

I also see the sense in the doc on Author Overload here: https://www.rfc-editor.org/old/policy.html#policy.authlist. That doc recommends a "small set" of authors (no hard limit), discusses practical concerns (the header falls apart with too many names in it), and brings in ideological concerns about corporate branding of specs.

To address the practical concerns about the header size, one alternative would be to limit the list of authors to five (as suggested). A second alternative would be to make a request for an exception. Since I believe that IETF GeoJSON is still GeoJSON, I prefer either of these options to the one proposed in this pull request. I think GeoJSON has benefited immensely from being the product of multiple authors, and I don't like the idea of instead attributing it to one individual (or corporation).

To address the ideological concerns about corporate presence on a RFC, I would suggest that all authors drop our corporate affiliations. These corporate affiliations have changed (for at least Sean and me) throughout the lifetime of GeoJSON, and I agree with the sentiment of the RFC guidelines about preferring real people's names.

We had three suggestions on the mailing list to get the author list to five. If we believe five is a hard limit, I'd prefer any of the alternatives to this pull request. I imagine there will be opportunities to continue evolving GeoJSON in the future, and I like the idea of more than one of us feeling responsibility for being involved.

[adoyle]

I'm happy to drop my affiliation, I'm not at MIT anymore, and the work I've done has not actually been funded by anyone.

I'd agree to keeping the six or to dropping to @sgillies as editor and the rest in the contributors, with a strong preference for the former. I don't want to kick anyone off the island.

[sgillies]

While I'm sorting out a DTD upgrade, @martinthomson: is there precedent for dropping affiiliations in order to reduce the size of the header?

@tschaub I'm not excited about applying for an exception. Editing this thing is hard enough as it is. Why add more work?

[coopdanger]

It's not really a matter of "applying" for an exception. I asked about this because we generally like to follow the 5-author rule and I didn't know if that had been considered by the WG. If people feel strongly that you would like to keep all 6, then keep them, keep their affiliations, and I think I can make a convincing case to the IESG that this is warranted in this case. The shepherd should include a discussion of this issue in the shepherd write-up.

[sthagen]

@coopdanger: If you "could make a convincing case", that would be great. The statements made by the active authors classify as "feeling strongly" IMO and - as I wrote a few comments earlier on that pull request #200 here - us being six authors, really reflects the way the community pushed this thing over the years into a) existence and b) years long everyday use all over the internet alike. By the way, OASIS also worships the persons and minds behind the standards, and if the people really contribute(d) to a standard, it is IMO good practice to take the offering of these individuals as "contact vector" for the future world at large and beneficial for all in the long term, I guess.

[sgillies]

Closing this in favor of a 6 authors draft in #201.

[tschaub]

Thanks for the additional detail @coopdanger. If having six authors raises additional concerns along the lines of those described in the Author Overload doc, I imagine we could reach consensus on dropping corporate affiliations.

This would make for a nice compact header and a brand-free RFC.

[coopdanger]

No, I think the best path is to keep 6 authors with affiliations and I will explain the rationale to the IESG.