bibxml citation library

[stpeter]

For many years we have maintained a citation library in bibxml format for use in the references section of Internet-Drafts and other non-XSF specifications. The main consumer of this citation library is the IETF, which plans to restrict the number of domains from which it pulls bibxml files. We need to decide whether we want the XSF to be on the shortlist.

Here are a few considerations:

• The number of IETF specifications that reference XSF XEPs is fairly small.
• We haven't always done a great job of keeping the bibxml files up to date.
• The lack of a citation library won't make it impossible for Internet-Drafts to cite XEPs, but it will need to be done in a more manual fashion.

FWIW, my tentative recommendation is that we not keep maintaining the citation library.

cc @rjsparks

[Flowdalic]

FWIW, since https://github.com/xsf/xeps/commit/5d186e6362048ec4e4648b6a2a6207453dcc8154 every XEP has a Biblatex entry (example). I wonder if a similar XSLT can be used to create a bibxml file per XEP.

[stpeter]

@flowdalic that seems doable. We also maintain(ed) a zipfile and tarfile of all the individual bibxml files, however I'm not sure if the IETF needs those. @rjsparks can clarify for us but I know he is very busy this week with the IETF meeting.

[rjsparks]

To my knowledge we have not used a zip or tarball of the files. We do have some older internet-drafts in our archive that used an include mechanism (from xml2rfc v2 days) that have include references like this (from the draft that became RFC7395):

      <?rfc include="http://xmpp.org/extensions/refs/reference.XSF.XEP-0124.xml"?>
      <?rfc include="http://xmpp.org/extensions/refs/reference.XSF.XEP-0156.xml"?>
      <?rfc include="http://xmpp.org/extensions/refs/reference.XSF.XEP-0198.xml"?>
      <?rfc include="http://xmpp.org/extensions/refs/reference.XSF.XEP-0199.xml"?>
      <?rfc include="http://xmpp.org/extensions/refs/reference.XSF.XEP-0206.xml"?>

If those URLs stop working, and anyone tries to pick up a draft like that and edit from it, they will have a bad time.

[Flowdalic]

As pointed out by nav in the jdev MUC make refs of this repository creates those refs/reference.XSF.XEP-XXXX.xml files and those appear to be reachable under e.g., http://xmpp.org/extensions/refs/reference.XSF.XEP-0124.xml.

I am bit concerned that the links are not versioned, given that XEPs are living documents, a reference to XEP-0123 could become a reference to a more-or-less different XEP in the future. Maybe it would be better if XEPs where referenced by version, e.g., http://xmpp.org/extensions/refs/reference.XSF.XEP-0124-v1.0.xml. But of course, this has other drawbacks.

[stpeter]

IETF specifications often contain references to living standards (e.g., HTML); this is fine and usually preferred. If it is necessary for a spec to cite a specific version of another standard, that can be worked out manually. Thus I suggest that one citation file per specification is best.

[Flowdalic]

FWIW, our references under https://xmpp.org/extensions/refs/ are now up to date and regularly generated. I've also created https://github.com/ietf-tools/bibxml-service/issues/302