Re: [CCAMP] [netmod] What to reference when importing an IANA module?

[Randy Presuhn <[e-mail]>]

Hi -

On 2023-01-16 12:00 AM, [e-mail] wrote:
> Hi Randy,
> 
> Please see inline.
> 
> Cheers,
> Med
> 
>> -----Message d'origine-----
>> De : netmod <[e-mail]> De la part de Randy Presuhn
>> Envoyé : vendredi 13 janvier 2023 21:22
>> À : [e-mail]; [e-mail]
>> Objet : Re: [netmod] What to reference when importing an IANA
>> module?
>>
>> Hi -
>>
> ...
>>
>>> Want to take a swing at it?
>>
>> Not me.  :-)  There are competing requirements, and the "best"
>> answer will very much depend on each situation.  I think the
>> *spirit* of the RFC 8407 Section 3.9 is  "point to whatever
>> resource will be most enlightening to the developer / user."  But
>> the letter of the law is "point to whatever is needed to generate
>> a tree of normative reference dependencies" - that is, use what
>> will be most helpful to the people writing the standards.  There's
>> a point to both kinds of pointers.
>>
> 
> [Med] Agree (see my previous answers to Tom). https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-boucadair-netmod-iana-registries/ currently says:
> 
>     If an IANA-maintained module is imported by another module, a
>     normative reference with the IANA URL from where to retrieve the
>     IANA-maintained module SHOULD be included.  Although not encouraged,
>     referencing the RFC that defines the initial version of the IANA
>     module is acceptable in specific cases (e.g., the imported version is
>     specifically the initial version, the RFC includes useful description
>     about the usage of the module).
> 
> Would that be OK with you? Thanks

Looks pretty good to me, though when trying to imagine what might
possibly go wrong, I have three minor concerns:

    Is there any way "IANA-maintained module" might be misunderstood to
    include more than the sort of registry-like situations intended here?

    The final parenthetical comment addresses two very different
    situations, and I'm think it's potentially unhelpful to conflate
    them: in the first, the reference is necessary and sufficient to
    identify the normative information needed.  In the second, for
    whatever reasons the information in the module itself is inadequate,
    and an *additional* normative reference is needed.

    This is probably beyond the scope of this I-D, but I'd imagine the
    same issues would exist with type repositories and registries
    maintained by other SDOs or vendors.

Randy