Re: [pim] Stig/*: draft-ietf-pim-rfc8736bis problem / suggestion

[Toerless Eckert <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, Mar 08, 2023 at 11:46:30AM -0800, Alvaro Retana wrote:
> On March 8, 2023 at 1:37:26 PM, Toerless Eckert wrote:
> 
> The question about the actual bit position came up for
> null-register-packing during IESG Evaluation.  As I explained then,
> the indication in the draft is just a placeholder.

I am not aware that that this "placeholder" concept is specified 
anywhere. Nor is that term or explanation used in either our drafts.

If i would ahve known about this placeholder text during writing of the
draft text, that would have saved me a lot of time.

The placeholder concept leads to the most easy way to write
the best drafts and avoids early allocation, but i think it needs to
be specified somewhere. And we certainly don't want to repeat such
placeholder explanation text in every new RFC. Therefore it should be in
rfc8736bis or some RFC that rfc8736bis can reference.

Ideally rfc8736 has an example Flag Bit picture and Text with
the explanation that the picture location is only a placeholder 
and may need to change during RFC finalization if the actual IANA allocation differs.

Cheers
    Toerless

> Yes, you can also simply say TBD and not indicate a specific bit in
> the figures if that's what you prefer.  Putting this type of detail in
> a document is unnecessary.

It may be unnecessary, but as an author of such a draft i am
saying it would have been very helpful and time saving for me.

> > But of course that is yet more process. Do you want that process ? Then it
> > should be written into rfc8736bis. Sure, its well known, but given how we have
> > two drafts concurrently that don't do this early allocation, we don't seem to
> > want to follow the rules we know (but like to avoid).
> 
> No additional process is needed.  The early allocation process is
> already defined in rfc7120.


Cheers
    Toerless

> > Alternatively, the drafts can just write the to-be-assigned-flag names and
> > then hmm... at which point in time would one be able to finalize nicely
> > looking pictures where the position of a new flag bit is shown in picture ? I
> > guess final IANA allocation only happens after IESG approval of a draft,
> > right?
> >
> > So ultimately, we would likely want drafts to be written for picturs NOT to
> > show the (not yet IANA allocated) new flag bit field positions, but ten fix
> > that during RFC-editor run ??
> >
> > IN any case, IMHO, the more is written in this draft text to make this clear,
> > IMHO the better.
> 
> See above.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Alvaro.

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