Subject: Re: [httpapi] Last Call: <draft-ietf-httpapi-rfc7807bis-04.txt> (Problem Details for HTTP APIs) to Proposed Standard

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2022 22:32:43 +0100

I reviewed draft-ietf-httpapi-rfc7807bis-04.txt mostly from an ART
area point of view, although this is not be confused with the formal
ARTART review.
(Disclosure: The reviewer has contributed to RFC 9290, which is a
mechanism inspired by RFC 7807, but specifically for constrained
environments -- which has led to a few differences both in overall
approach and in some details.)

Grüße, Carsten

This update to RFC 7807 is a highly useful document, building and
improving on the existing RFC 7807, and containing significant amounts
of to-the-point implementation and usage advice.

# Major:

There seems to be an expectation that IANA will make
https://iana.org/assignments/http-problem-types#foo resolvable.
I'm not sure IANA is in a position to do this today.

Section 5.2: The cited [RFC8126] Section 4.5 is "Expert Review", but
the text says "Specification Required”.

# Minor:

The specification is a bit wobbly on whether type URIs should be
resolvable -- it explains the possibility, immediately explains an
evolvability problem with non-resolvable type URIs, and then later has
a SHOULD for being resolvable.

Appendix A has a data definition for the JSON form in the current
json-schema.org language version, but none in CDDL (RFC 8610).
I propose adding the CDDL in the same spirit (informative definition),
see PR#59 [2].

# Nits:

-- 3.1.1:
   Non-resolvable URIs ought not be used when there is some future
   possibility that it might become desirable to do so.

To this non-native speaker, "to do so" points nowhere (well, actually
to using them, but that is a paradox then).
What is probably meant is:

   Non-resolvable URIs ought not be used when there is some future
   possibility that it might become desirable to be able to resolve
   the URIs.

Further nits (typos) are in PR#58 [1].

[1]: https://github.com/ietf-wg-httpapi/rfc7807bis/pull/58
[2]: https://github.com/ietf-wg-httpapi/rfc7807bis/pull/59