Re: urgent check

["C. M. Heard" <heard@pobox.com>]

On Thu, 12 Dec 2002, Wijnen, Bert (Bert) wrote:

> If you look at document
> 
>   http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-ipsp-ipsecpib-06.txt
> 
> And you look at the use of OBJECT-IDENTITY at the beginning of
> the PIB module. Do we agree that that is proper use?
> Is it not better to use OBJECT IDENTIFIER for most of these?

If this were a MIB module rather than a PIB module I would be
inclined to agree with you, because we normally reserve the
OBJECT-IDENTITY macro in MIBs for OBJECT IDENTIFIER assignments
that define an identification value (e.g. an AutonomousType, a
product ID, a chipset ID, and so on).  In such cases the fact
that the OBJECT-IDENTITY macro defines a registration is useful,
because that prevents the same OID value from being associated
with more than one thing.  Traditionally we don't use the
OBJECT-IDENTITY macro in a MIB module to define intermediate
OID values in the subtrees associated with the MIB module.  This
is not mandated by the SMI but I think it's a good idea not to
create registrations where none is needed.  I guess that the MIB
guidelines document should have a recommendation to this effect.

On the other hand, the SPPI has no concept of a registration,
so the only difference between an OBJECT-IDENTITY and an
OBJECT IDENTIFIER assignment is that the stuff that would
otherwise be captured in ASN.1 comments appears in the
DESCRIPTION clause.  So the above reasoning does not apply.
(I won't comment on what's traditional in PIB modules because
this is the first one I've ever looked at).

Mike