Re: [regext] Benjamin Kaduk's Discuss on draft-ietf-regext-rdap-partial-response-13: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)

[Mario Loffredo <[e-mail]>]

Hi Benjamin,

thanks a lot for your reply. Please find my comment below.

Il 10/09/2020 22:23, Benjamin Kaduk ha scritto:
> Hi Mario,
>
> On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 07:00:06PM +0200, Mario Loffredo wrote:
>> Hi Benjamin,
>>
>> thanks a lot for your review. Please find my comments inline.
>>
>> Il 09/09/2020 20:47, Benjamin Kaduk via Datatracker ha scritto:
>>> Benjamin Kaduk has entered the following ballot position for
>>> draft-ietf-regext-rdap-partial-response-13: Discuss
>>>
>>> When responding, please keep the subject line intact and reply to all
>>> email addresses included in the To and CC lines. (Feel free to cut this
>>> introductory paragraph, however.)
>>>
>>>
>>> Please refer to https://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/discuss-criteria.html
>>> for more information about IESG DISCUSS and COMMENT positions.
>>>
>>>
>>> The document, along with other ballot positions, can be found here:
>>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-regext-rdap-partial-response/
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> DISCUSS:
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> As was the case for Murray, I'm unconvinced that I have understood what
>>> Section 3 intended to convey.  However, I am balloting Discuss because
>>> my current best understanding is for a statement that seems inconsistent
>>> with my understanding of how the partial response mechanism works.  In
>>> particular, how would the topmost objects be returned according to
>>> different field sets, if there's only a single query parameter and (I
>>> assume) all topmost objects are the results of the same single query?
>>>
>> Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. Obviously, all the objects reutrned
>> by a server in response to a search are provided according the same
>> field set. What the Secion 3 aims to convey is that servers are free to
>> represent relationships between the parent objects and child objects in
>> the field sets as they want. For example, an RDAP profile could defne a
>> "brief" field set for the response to a /domains search that don't
>> include any information about the nameservers. Instead, in another RDAP
>> profile the "brief" field set for the response to a /domains search
>> could return the same information about the namservers as returned by
>> the "brief" field set defined for the response to a /nameservers search.
>>
>> Therefore, the list of fields of a short response to a /nameservers
>> search couldn't be the same as the list of fields for each nameserver
>> included in a short response to a /domains search.
>>
>> Obviously, to achieve the largest interoperability, it's logical to
>> expect that the policy about how to represent the information about
>> relationships should be quite similar in the various RDAP profiles. But
>> this is something out of the scope of the document.
>>
>> Hope this make the rationale of Section 3 more clear.
> Ah, I see the source of my confusion now -- "could be returned according to
> different field sets" means that the structure of the topmost object
> returned will vary with the field set in use, and "could be applied to
> their related objects" means that it's permitted (expected, perhaps) for a
> field set definition to include a specification for what fields of related
> objects are returned with the query (if any related objects are returned at
> all).  Thanks for the clarification!
>
> If I might propose an alternate wording for your consideration:
>
>     Representation of second level objects within a field set produces
>     additional considerations.  Since the representation of the topmost
>     returned objects will vary according to the field set in use, the
>     response may contain no relationships (e.g., for an abbreviated field
>     set) or may contain associated objects as in a normal RDAP query
>     response.  Each field set can indicate the format of the additional
>     objects to be returned, in the same manner that the format of the
>     topmost objects is controlled by the field set.

[ML] Sounds good. I rewrite Section 3. Thanks a lot for your suggestion.

Best,

Mario


>
> Thanks,
>
> Ben

-- 
Dr. Mario Loffredo
Systems and Technological Development Unit
Institute of Informatics and Telematics (IIT)
National Research Council (CNR)
via G. Moruzzi 1, I-56124 PISA, Italy
Phone: [phone]
Mobile: [phone]
Web: http://www.iit.cnr.it/mario.loffredo