[Cesg-all] Can we provide forwarding document for superseded issues of standards?

[John Garrett]

Hi,

The CCSDS web site has a long term problem with providing users with a easy way 
find new issues of superseded standards.
I'm thinking about this again because of the new issue of the OAIS Reference Model.

There are literally probably 100's of thousands of links to the old OAIS 
Reference Model URL
http://public.ccsds.org/publications/archive/650x0b1.pdf
Since there are 100's of thousands of links, it is simply impractical to identify 
all of them and to follow up with them asking them to update their links.
Even in the general case with only a few links, it is likely impractical to get 
all the links changed, because many of the links will be in papers previously 
prepared for conferences etc, where the link has been included in references 
section of the paper.  In those cases the links could not be updated without 
changing the actual paper.

Attempting to open the URL for the original OAIS issue currently results simply 
in a message "404 NOT FOUND".

This is especially difficult for OAIS since if users go and try to find a new 
version in the list of CCSDS Standards at
http://public.ccsds.org/publications/BlueBooks.aspx
they will not find the new version since it was redefined as a Magenta Book.

We've asked long ago if we could provide a redirect in the web site 
configuration, but apparently that is not possible.
Thinking about this, I think I've found another possibility.
I think we could help CCSDS users by simply providing a document that would 
continue to live at the old URL address that provided forwarding information.

For the OAIS example, at the Issue 1 OAIS URL we would provide a document similar 
to this:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The document, CCSDS 650.0-B-1, you are attempting to access is obsolete or has 
been superseded by CCSDS.

The new issue of the document, CCSDS 650.0-M-2, is available at:
http://public.ccsds.org/publications/archive/650x0m2.pdf

If you truly want to access the superseded version of the document, it is 
available at:

http://public.ccsds.org/publications/archive/650x0b1s.pdf

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think this would be of great benefit to all users of CCSDS Standards.

Preparation and posting of such a document would be a simple way to address the 
problem and could be added as a simple addition to the release procedures for a 
new issue of any CCSDS document.
Since this is only needed for new releases of existing CCSDS documents, it should 
only be needed about once a month assuming we only have about a dozen new issues 
of CCSDS documents a year.

Good Health and Much Peace,
-JOhn