{ mib-2 999 } in BFD-MIB (fwd)

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

The forwarded message is me barking to the rtg-bfd WG mailing list
after seeing this.  At least one author of this draft (Tom Nadeau)
had been through enough MIB Doctor reviews that he should know
better ... but some people seem never to learn.

//cmh

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 19:28:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: C. M. Heard <heard@pobox.com>
To: rtg-bfd@ietf.org
Subject: { mib-2 999 } in BFD-MIB

Howdy,

In http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-bfd-mib-00.txt
I saw this:

   REVISION
       "200401221200Z"  -- 22 January 2004 12:00:00 EST
   DESCRIPTION
       "Initial version."
   ::= { mib-2 999 } -- To be assigned by IANA.

This usage is contrary to the Guidelines for Authors and Reviewers of
MIB Documents (<draft-ietf-ops-mib-review-guidelines-03.txt>);  see
in particular Section 4.5, which says:

   Note well:  prior to official assignment by the IANA, a draft
   document MUST use a placeholder (such as "XXX" above) rather than
   an actual number.  If trial implementations are desired during the
   development process, then an assignment under the 'experimental'
   subtree may be obtained from the IANA (cf. Section 4.3).

Experimental assignments can be had for the asking, so there is
no reason to use misappropriated numbers in your drafts.

The guidelines draft discusses this issue in Section 3.7.2 as well.

Thanks,

Mike Heard