Re: [Gen-art] Gen-ART Last Call review of draft-ietf-ippm-ioam-flags-08

[Tal Mizrahi <[e-mail]>]

Dear Paul,

Many thanks for the comments.

Please see my response below, marked [TM].

Cheers,
Tal.

On Sun, Jun 12, 2022 at 9:01 PM Paul Kyzivat <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
> I am the assigned Gen-ART reviewer for this draft. The General Area
> Review Team (Gen-ART) reviews all IETF documents being processed
> by the IESG for the IETF Chair.  Please treat these comments just
> like any other last call comments.
>
> For more information, please see the FAQ at
>
> <https://trac.ietf.org/trac/gen/wiki/GenArtfaq>.
>
> Document: draft-ietf-ippm-ioam-flags-08
> Reviewer: Paul Kyzivat
> Review Date: 2022-06-??
> IETF LC End Date: 2022-06-14
> IESG Telechat date: ?
>
> Summary:
>
> This draft is basically ready for publication, but has nits that should
> be fixed before publication.
>
> Issues:
>
> Major: 0
> Minor: 0
> Nits:  2
>
> 1) NIT: Doc name inconsistent with scope
>
> The name & title of this draft isn't very indicative of the content of
> the document. This document doesn't just define the *flag* for loopback;
> it also defines the entire loopback *mechanism*, which is a much bigger
> deal.
>
> It appears to me that the primary function of the document is to define
> the loopback mechanism, with the definition of the flag being necessary
> but secondary.
>
> This could be fixed by simply changing the name and title of the
> document. (Or at least the title since the name will disappear in the
> resulting rfc.)
>
> Or the specification of the loopback *mechanism* could be moved to a
> different document and this document reduced to simply defining the flags.
>

[TM] There is a delicate history here. Originally, the loopback and
active functionality were part of RFC 9197 (before it was published as
an RFC). At some point the working group commented that flag
definition should be separated from the data field definition (RFC
9197). Here is the discussion about this in IETF 104, and specifically
notice the text "regarding the editorials,  the draft specify out of
scope context, shouldn’t specify protocol behavior.  Will be discussed
in side meetings ... repeated for the active flag":
https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/104/materials/minutes-104-ippm-00

It was then further discussed in the following side meeting, and the
decision was to have a separate draft that defines the loopback and
active flag:
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ippm/XwOLqE-SLYoHL_x613BNgX2RORI/

I would suggest to stay with the current document title, since any
change can potentially restart this delicate discussion again.


> 2) NIT: Outdated reference
>
> IdNits reports:
>   == Outdated reference: draft-ietf-ippm-ioam-data has been published as
>      RFC 9197

[TM] Agreed. Will be fixed.