[netmod] Re: Éric Vyncke's Discuss on draft-ietf-netmod-yang-semver-26: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)

["Eric Vyncke (evyncke)" <[e-mail]>]

Hello Joe,

Thanks for your reply. I have looked at the proposed changes, but I am afraid that I still have issues with the I-D.

See below for EV> for more details.

Regards

-éric


From: Joe Clarke (jclarke) <[e-mail]>
Date: Wednesday, 24 June 2026 at 12:16
To: Eric Vyncke (evyncke) <[e-mail]>; The IESG <[e-mail]>
Cc: [e-mail] <[e-mail]>; [e-mail] <[e-mail]>; [e-mail] <[e-mail]>; [e-mail] <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Éric Vyncke's Discuss on draft-ietf-netmod-yang-semver-26: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)

Thanks for the review, Éric.  We’ve created a proposed revision, and I’m hosting the side-by-side diff at https://www.marcuscom.com/draft-ietf-netmod-yang-semver.diff.html as well as attaching it here.


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DISCUSS:
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# Éric Vyncke INT AD comments for draft-ietf-netmod-yang-semver-26
CC @evyncke

Thank you for the work put into this document.

Please find below some blocking DISCUSS points (easy to address), some
non-blocking COMMENT points/nits (replies would be appreciated even if only for
my own education).

Special thanks to Lou Berger for the shepherd's detailed write-up including the
WG consensus and the justification of the intended status and the large number
of authors.

I hope that this review helps to improve the document,

Regards,

-éric

Note: this ballot comments follow the Markdown syntax of
https://github.com/mnot/ietf-comments/tree/main, i.e., they can be processed by
a tool to create github issues.

## DISCUSS (blocking)

As noted in
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/statement-iesg-handling-ballot-positions-20220121/,
a DISCUSS ballot is a request to have a discussion on the points below; I
really think that the document would be improved with a change here, but can be
convinced otherwise.

### Section 4.5

In rule #1, the first "SHOULD" has a "unless", but why is the 2nd one not a
"MUST" in `in which case the artifact version "X.Y.Z+1_non_compatible" SHOULD
be used instead` ?

I am unable to fully understand the rule #2.i `unless that version has already
been used for this artifact but with different content, when the artifact
version SHOULD be updated ` (which also has a SHOULD without the required IESG
guidance per
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/statement-iesg-statement-on-clarifying-the-use-of-bcp-14-key-words/
) The part that I do not understand is the use of "when" in the sentence.

EV> 2.i text is easier to understand, so, this part is addressed.

There are also too many "SHOULD" without any guidance, i.e., why not using
"MUST" then ?

[JMC] We made a clarification to one of the SHOULDs with a change to MUST in another place.  We also added a normative sentence on when to use MAJOR or the _COMPAT modifier.  Does this help?

EV> the I-D is improved with the changes but not completely though
EV> the added sentence `An artifact author MAY choose a more significant MAJOR...` would work *IF* it started with "Otherwise, an artefact... MUST choose .... described in section XYZ`
EV> (it is unclear where the description is).

### Section 6

Why not a "MUST" in `SHOULD begin with a 0` ?

[JMC] Mainly because we didn’t want to be overly aggressive to YANG-producing organizations outside of the IETF.  We offer the alternate form of pre-release versioning as a MAY to be generally compatible with vendor or other SDOs proclivities.

EV> While I now better understand the concept, I must say that the text is overly complex.
EV> Also, should there be a "MUST NOT start with a value > 1" ?

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COMMENT:
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EV> thanks for addressing them

## COMMENTS (non-blocking)

### Section 4.5

`The following four rules specify` is actually followed by 5 rules ;-)

[JMC] Fixed with some added clarity as well.

### Section 4.6

Suggest to add a graphical representation (e.g., the trees used in the beginning of this I-D).

[JMC] Added!

Joe