[yang-doctors] RFC 9127-bis question - impact of reference clauses in an import statement

[Jeffrey Haas <[e-mail]>]

[Reference message to issue in thread:
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rtg-bfd/Ajo-ku8EJxiEnZjdkRfdzGIg59A/ ]

YANG doctors,

The BFD Working Group is trying to move forward on the RFC 9127-bis work
that was previously discussed with you.  I believe there is consensus in how
we will move forward on the modification to the common configuration
grouping and its associated feature statement.  This strategy was previously
communicated to you all.

This is a question about what we put in the -bis document.  Previously, the
thinking was we did a full re-issue.  Tom Petch, in the thread cited above,
notes that we minimally can't do part of this because there are modules
already delegated to IANA.

The discussion about the what the internet-draft text should include from
RFC 9127 or not lead to a question I had: Would it not be sufficient to
simply issue an update to the ietf-bfd-types module where all of the impact
is isolated?

Tom's argument is that the form of the import, which contains references to
RFC 9127, suggest we really want a re-issue so we point to the proper new RFC.

As an example, from module ietf-bfd:
 :  import ietf-bfd-types {
 :    prefix bfd-types;
 :    reference
 :      "RFC 9127: YANG Data Model for Bidirectional Forwarding
 :       Detection (BFD)";
 :  }

As best I am able to tell from RFC 7950, § 7.21.4, reference is partially
meant to be informational.  If it was normative, an update to any module
imported by another with a reference would require an update.

Note that this isn't an import by revision.

My question is thus what are the rules to issue module updates in such
circumstances?

Tom and the BFD YANG authors are copied to make sure I haven't
misrepresented the situation.

-- Jeff