Re: [Netconf] Draft charter update for review

[Juergen Schoenwaelder <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 10:20:17AM -0500, Rodney Cummings wrote:
> Hi Benoit,
> 
> I think we will need to agree to disagree on this issue.
> 
> To me, the sentence in the charter sounds like the sort of thinking that 
> resulted in XML being mandated for RESTCONF. After all, if NETCONF 
> mandates XML, one can argue that RESTCONF should not deviate. 
> 
> Did the working group provide a "proper justification" to remove the XML 
> mandate from RESTCONF?
> 
> I don't know, because the phrase "proper justification" is subjective. 
> Maybe we did, and maybe we didn't. Therefore, it seems likely that we will 
> repeat this sort of debate. Someone will propose to mandate a feature from 
> NETCONF that increases the RESTCONF implementation burden. We can have 
> another lengthy debate and vote each time this happens, but I don't see 
> that as a good use of everyone's time.
> 
> If the sentence was changed to 
>         "RESTCONF should provide optional features that align with NETCONF 
> capabilities, unless proper justification is provided and documented."
> then I would have no concerns. Addition of optional features does not 
> increase the implementation complexity, because a server an choose to 
> ignore the optional features.
>

Being feature complete to NETCONF was never the goal of RESTCONF. In
fact, the RESTCONF document says this:

   An HTTP-based management protocol does not need to mirror the
   functionality of the NETCONF protocol, but it needs to be compatible
   with NETCONF.  A simplified transaction model is needed that allows
   basic CRUD operations on a hierarchy of conceptual resources.  This
   represents a limited subset of the transaction capabilities of the
   NETCONF protocol.

It also says this:

   The base RESTCONF protocol is intentionally simple to allow
   deployment for as many use cases as possible.  Additional
   functionality can be defined in external documents, outside the scope
   of this document.

/js

-- 
Juergen Schoenwaelder           Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH
Phone: [phone]         Campus Ring 1 | 28759 Bremen | Germany
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