Network Working Group                                        H. Flanagan
Internet-Draft                                                RFC Editor
Intended status: Informational                             June 20, 2014
Expires: December 22, 2014


                    Requirements for Plain Text RFCs
                      draft-flanagan-plaintext-00

Abstract

   This draft documents the change in requirements and layout for the
   plain-text RFC publication format.

Editorial Note (To be removed by the RFC Editor)

   Discussion of this draft takes place on the rfc-interest mailing list
   (rfc-interest@rfc-editor.org), which has its home page at
   https://www.rfc-editor.org/mailman/listinfo/rfc-interest.

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on December 22, 2014.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2014 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Character Encoding  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Figures and Artwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Page Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     4.1.  Headers and Footers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     4.2.  Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   5.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   8.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     8.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     8.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4

.  Introduction

   One of the requirements documented in RFC 6949 [RFC6949], "RFC Series
   Format Requirements and Future Development," is the continued support
   for a plain text publication format.

   The Unicode Consortium defines 'plain text' as "Computer-encoded text
   that consists only of a sequence of code points from a given
   standard, with no other formatting or structural information.  Plain
   text interchange is commonly used between computer systems that do
   not share higher-level protocols." [unicode-glossary]

   While a plain text output for RFCs will continue to be required for
   the foreseeable future, the details of what that means for RFCs in
   terms of which character encoding may be used, what the page layout
   will look like, how to handle figures and artwork, and so on, are
   documented in this draft.

   The following assumptions drive the changes in the plain text output
   for RFCs:

   o  The existing tools to create the text file are extremely
      sensitive; manual manipulation is required in the final output.
      In particular, handling page breaks for text is tricky.

   o  Additional publication formats--for example: PDF, HTML-- will be
      available that will offer features such as markup, pagination,
      etc.



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.  Character Encoding

   The character encoding for all plain text documents will be UTF-8
   [RFC3629].  The file will include a byte order mark (BOM) to provide
   text reader software with in-band information about the character
   encoding scheme used.

.  Figures and Artwork

   Authors may continue to include figures drawn with ASCII characters.
   If the canonical format includes figures or artwork other than ASCII-
   art, then the plain text output must include a pointer to the HTML
   version of the RFC to allow readers to see the relevant artwork.

   Authors who wish to include ASCII-art for the plain text file and SVG
   art for the other outputs may do so, but they should be aware of the
   potential for confusion to individuals reading the RFC with two
   unique diagrams describing the same content.

   ASCII art will have a character width limit of no more than 85
   characters.

.  Page Layout

   Pagination is no longer required.  Line lengths for both text and
   artwork, will increase to 85 characters.

4.1.  Headers and Footers

   The front matter on the front page (such as the RFC number and
   category), and the back matter on the last page (the author's full
   names and contact information) will continue with the structure
   described in RFC 5741 [RFC5741], "RFC Streams, Headers, and
   Boilerplates".  Given the removal of the pagination requirement,
   running headers and footers will no longer exist.

4.2.  Table of Contents

   Given the removal of the pagination requirement, the Table of
   Contents will list section and subsection numbers and titles, but
   will not include page numbers.

.  Acknowledgements

   This draft owes a great deal of thanks to the efforts of the RFC
   Format Design Team: Nevil Brownlee, Tony Hansen, Joe Hildebrand, Paul
   Hoffman, Ted Lemon, Julian Reschke, Adam Roach, Alice Russo, Robert
   Sparks, and David Thaler



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.  IANA Considerations

   This memo includes no requests to IANA.

.  Security Considerations

   TBD.

.  References

8.1.  Normative References

   [RFC3629]  Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
              10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, November 2003.

   [RFC5741]  Daigle, L., Kolkman, O., and IAB, "RFC Streams, Headers,
              and Boilerplates", RFC 5741, December 2009.

   [RFC6949]  Flanagan, H. and N. Brownlee, "RFC Series Format
              Requirements and Future Development", RFC 6949, May 2013.

8.2.  Informative References

   [unicode-glossary]
              The Unicode Consortium, "Glossary of Unicode Terms", 2014,
              <http://www.unicode.org/glossary/>.

Author's Address

   Heather Flanagan
   RFC Editor

   Email: rse@rfc-editor.org


















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