Re: [sacm] [sacmwg/draft-ietf-sacm-terminology] defining configuration (#31)

[Henk Birkholz <[e-mail]>]

NMDA is an RFC now (that took longer than expected).

In general, I'd recommend to read this section and its sub-sections:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8342#section-5

This is the taxonomy of configuration from NMDA in a nutshell:
* Conventional Configuration
  * running
  * candidate
  * startup
  * intended
* Dynamic Configuration (configuration that does not survive a boot-cycle but is not state....)
* Operational Configuration (configuration and its state (!) that is actually used by the target endpoint)
* "some important flavors of configuration that seem to have no parent term"....
  * learned configuration: neither dynamic configuration nor conventional configuration....)
  * system configuration: configuration that is supplied by the hardware components themselves)
  * default configuration: configuration that is not explicitly provided, but a default value exists)
  * applied configuration: configuration that is actively in use by a device.

As a complement there is:
* system state: the additional data on a system that is not configuration, such as read-only status
  information and collected statistics. System state is transient and modified by interactions with
  internal components or other systems.
This is pretty much what SACM always defined as State.

In essence, the configuration interesting to SACM is "applied configuration" and then the "system state".

The composite of both is actually also defined by NMDA:
* operational state: The combination of applied configuration and system state.

In consequence, my proposal is to directly adopt the three terms "applied configuration", "system state" and "operational state". Alternatively, we could just retain configuration and highlight that it means applied configuration and retain state and highlight that is means system state.

The term "operational state" would be a new addition and basically refer to the composite of current configuration and current state -> a big chunk of our collectible target endpoint attributes.

There might be a few types of conventional configuration (e.g. not activated features or inactive configuration) that I cannot personally map to the NMDA terminology. But maybe a more proficient group member can? 

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