Re: [netmod] draft netmod charter update proposal

[Juergen Schoenwaelder <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, Mar 01, 2017 at 09:32:37AM +0100, Ladislav Lhotka wrote:
> 
> > So are we going through all NETMOD/NETCONF documents now to replace
> > 'encoding' with 'representation', which also includes changing
> > document titles? I am not necessarily against that change but I think
> > it is good to understand the implications that go well beyond some
> > charter text. (I did do my own analysis how frequently we have used
> > encoding in our documents, I assume others have done this as well.)
> > 
> 
> I don't think it is necessary to immediately update old RFCs with this new term. I do think though it is important to stop using "encoding". People have to realize that
> 
> - different representations of conceptual data/resources cannot be automatically translated to each other as the term "encoding" might suggest
>

I do not think that encoding implies that encoding A can be converted
to encoding B nor do I think representation does not imply that
representation A can be converted into representation B.

> - it is important to think about what representation to use for a given use case (this may influence the choice of protocols and/or tools).

The same has always been true before as well.

> This terminology will also help app folks understand what we are dealing with in NETCONF/NETMOD.

I am not against changing terminology but I think we should make sure
that there is agreement, ideally in NETMOD and NETCONF, to adopt this
new terminology. The worst result would be if documents end up being
inconsistent in their terminology for a long period of time. So it is
also useful to consider how long the transition to a new terminology
is realistically going to be, i.e., how many documents are affected
and how much and when it is likely that they can move to a new
terminology.

In other words, if we make this change, we may consider to have this
explicitly mentioned in both charters.

/js

-- 
Juergen Schoenwaelder           Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH
Phone: [phone]         Campus Ring 1 | 28759 Bremen | Germany
Fax:   [phone]         <http://www.jacobs-university.de/>