Subject: Re: [provreg] EPP extensions working group

From: Dan York <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2013 14:48:13 +0000

On 7/31/13 1:43 PM, "Patrik Fältström" <[email-masked]> wrote:

>
>On 31 jul 2013, at 12:15, Chris Wright <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>> so changing them for the sake of change probably wouldn't go down very
>>well
>
>True, but new extensions are "invented" by registrars if not every week
>so every quarter. Not having them documented somewhere would be sad, and
>increases the risk new extensions are invented.

I think this is a key point - we ideally need to stop the *proliferation*
of new extensions that do the same thing as existing extensions (or slight
variations thereof).  Yes, there may still be 3 different ways to send
some information, but perhaps we can prevent there from being 15 different
ways.  But we can't do that without documentation of what the existing
extensions are.   

This reminds me of the earlier days of SIP when it seemed every SIP
service provider was inventing their own header field to carry some type
of information within their private network.  As they sought to
interconnect to other private networks and exchange information, they
discovered that different providers were passing similar info using
different headers.  An IANA registry was available (
http://www.iana.org/assignments/sip-parameters/sip-parameters.xhtml#sip-par
ameters-2 ) and now contains documentation of different headers.  There
are still multiple headers that pass similar kinds of information, but
people at service providers can at least view the various choices and
potentially choose to use an existing header before going off and creating
their own.

There does not seem to be an IANA registry of EPP extensions - should one
perhaps be created?

Dan

---

From: "Marco Davids (SIDN)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 09:20:19 +0200

Dan,

> There does not seem to be an IANA registry of EPP extensions - should one

What about this?

http://www.iana.org/assignments/xml-registry/xml-registry.xhtml

(search for EPP)

Is that what you where looking for perhaps?

Regards,

--
Marco

---

From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 09:42:36 +0200

> Is that what you where looking for perhaps?

Yes, but also others used by registries for EPP, like urn:se:iis:xml:epp:iis-1.2.

And btw, that list contain other EPP related extensions that does not include the "epp" string.

   Patrik

---

From: Peter Koch <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 09:49:44 +0200

Dan, all,

> of new extensions that do the same thing as existing extensions (or slight

with the current extension regime there is little to prevent similar or
overlapping extensions.  Contrary to other protocols there is almost always
a single server side implementation since extensions reflect registry
policy.

> ways.  But we can't do that without documentation of what the existing

Necessary, but not sufficient. Extension follows policy, so the process
would have to start earlier.  The existence (and development) of different policies
is a feature, not a bug. Yes, even with nTLDs.

> There does not seem to be an IANA registry of EPP extensions - should one

What you're looking for is at odds with the purpose of an IANA registry.
For one, there is a URN registry added to by all EPP documents so far,
operating at "first come, first served" - well, "specification required".
Definitely not a quality gate and collision avoidance only to the extent
URN identifiers are concerns, not avoiding content overlap.

What you're looking for is either a catalog of implementations at various
eligibility levels, which would once have been a task for the RFC Editor
or some applicability statement or or something else that's probably beyond
the scope of the IETF.

-Peter