Re: guidelines section 4.5 (WG-assigned OIDs vs IANA-assigned OIDs)

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

[ in reply to comments/review <draft-ietf-ops-mib-review-guidelines-00.txt> ]

On Fri, 7 Feb 2003, Wijnen, Bert (Bert) wrote:
> - sect 4.5
>   last sentence of 3rd bullet....
>   are we sure we agree? I have seen trouble with that, even
>   for the RMON MIB space... I cought it in time before
>   we published an RFC, but... 
>   Should we at least ask that such registrations are 
>   administered by IANA. SO the WG can make them but should 
>   get them recorded and documented in the IANA registry.
>   That way... when say 10 years from now, someone wants to
>   add something, they have a central place to check as to
>   what actually has been assigned and what numbers are still
>   available.

Let me reproduce the controversial sentence here:

     It is also acceptable for a working group
     to make its own assignments from a subtree
     delegated to it by IANA, provided that adequate
     controls are in place to ensure that such
     assignments are unique.

I put this in because it was my understanding that (a) the RMON
WG actually does this and (b) they find the practice advantageous
because assignments can for practical purposes be considered
finalized once a document is approved, which often precedes
RFC publication (and thus IANA assignment) by several months.

I guess we ought to put the question to the list, and in
particular we ought to see what Andy has to say.

In one recent case that arose in the Hub MIB WG, I (speaking
as a WG member, not as a MIB reviewer) asked the authors of
the POWER-ETHERNET-MIB to use an IANA-assigned top-level OID
instead of picking an unused OID under dot3.  I did so because
the WG didn't have a registry arrangement to ensure that there
would be no conflicting assignments in the future.

Any other opinions?

Mike