RE: guidelines section 3.7 (disposition of IANA MIB modules)

["Wijnen, Bert (Bert)" <bwijnen@lucent.com>]

Comments from other MIB Doctors, please?

Thanks,
Bert 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: C. M. Heard [mailto:heard@pobox.com]
> Sent: dinsdag 11 februari 2003 20:39
> To: Mreview (E-mail)
> Subject: Re: guidelines section 3.7 (disposition of IANA MIB modules)
> 
> 
> [ in reply to comments/review 
> <draft-ietf-ops-mib-review-guidelines-00.txt> ]
> 
> On Fri, 7 Feb 2003, Wijnen, Bert (Bert) wrote:
> > - sect 3.7
> >   I personally have no problem [if a to-be] IANA-maintained
> >   MIB module stays in an RFC where it gets first published
> >   and handed to the RFC-Editor. As long as it makes clear
> >   that current versions should be picked up from the iana
> >   web pages, and that furture revisions will NOT include
> >   the current or updated revisions.
> >   RFC1573 is an example of that for IANA ifTypes.
> 
> I am aware that RFC 1573 did not remove the IANAifType-MIB module,  
> but that was the first time an IANA-maintained MIB module was
> defined, and it should not be used as a precedent if we've since   
> found a better way to do things.  I believe that the method used
> for RFC 2932 is a better way, and for that reason I've cited it
> as the best current accepted practice.
> 
> Let me explain my reasoning.  In general, I think it's better
> NOT to publish unauthoritative versions of an IANA MIB module
> (or anything else) in an RFC, because people tend to extract
> the unauthoritative version from the RFC instead of getting
> the latest one from IANA.  Furthermore, the IANA MIB module
> will normally be removed from future versions of the spec (e.g.,
> IANAifType-MIB was not included in RFC 2233 or RFC 2863).  It
> seems inconsistent to include a snapshot of the IANA MIB in
> the initial RFC but not in subsequent revisions.
> 
> If you don't agree with this reasoning I guess we need to
> discuss the issue further.  At the very least, if the initial
> version of an IANA MIB module is included in an RFC, then it
> needs to be put into an appendix (so it is easy for authors
> of future revisions to remove it), and that appendix should
> be clearly marked as non-normative.  It's much better, in my
> view, just to leave it out of the published document and
> include the IANA URL.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Mike
> 
>