Re: Alternative procedure for updating MIB modules

["Randy Presuhn" <randy_presuhn@mindspring.com>]

Hi -

> From: "C. M. Heard" <heard@pobox.com>
> To: "Mreview (E-mail)" <mreview@ops.ietf.org>
> Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2004 12:15 PM
> Subject: Re: Alternative procedure for updating MIB modules
...
(lots of agreement or near-agreement deleted)
...
> I don't think that the problem is derailing the document from the
> standards track, but rather the fact that republishing the whole
> document is a hassle.  If we made that easier to do, then maybe the
> motivation to do incremental updates would be removed.
...

I think we should ask ourselves why republishing an updated
document is perceived to be a hassle.  My perspective:

    - boilerplate is constantly changing
    - references need to be updated
    - RFC 2223bis has been a moving target
    - IPR legalese updates (which aren't reflected in 2223bis)
    - security considerations will generally need update
      (it's like the adage: "every program contains at least one
      bug, and every program contains at least one unnecessary
      instruction."  (never mind the part about every program
      consequently being reducible to a single instruction that
      doesn't work.))
    - MIB doctor review will usually find some nits that slipped
      through on the previous iteration
    - the document editor will usually spot at least one typo that
      slipped through on the previous iteration
    - the time spent in the RFC editor queue

Despite all this, I don't find doing an update to be *that* much
of a hassle.  Perhaps I haven't done it enough yet.

Randy