Subject: Re: Equally capable referrals

From: "Timothy Hahn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 15:36:37 -0500

Jim,

Could we possibly just "loosen up" the statement from 'equally capable' to 
'possibly capable'?

If not, then we might as well strike the sentence.  This does leave 
implementers "hanging" though in terms of what is intended but not 
necessarily written.

Regards,
Tim Hahn

Internet: [email-masked]
Internal: Timothy Hahn/Endicott/IBM@IBMUS or IBMUSM00(HAHNT)
phone: 607.752.6388     tie-line: 8/852.6388
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"Jim Sermersheim" <[email-masked]>
Sent by: [email-masked]
11/05/2001 07:57 PM

        To:     <[email-masked]>
        cc: 
        Subject:        Equally capable referrals

Earlier we discussed the issue of "what does it mean for referrals to be 
equally capable of being used to progress an operation?" (See section 
4.1.11 in RFC 2251)

My belief is that this requirement cannot be enforced. Especially if we 
allow the naming model to incorporate referral objects that may be added 
by an administrator. If the DSA is to follow referrals that an 
administrator was allowed to populate, it effectively puts the MUST 
requirement on the administrator, which I don't think was the original 
intent of the RFC.

Earlier, we had rough consensus on dropping the word "equally", but how 
does one control whether the URL populated in a referral are capable at 
all of progressing the operation?

Either by consensus, or lack of two interoperable implementations, I would 
like to remove the sentence altogether--along with the sentence that 
directly follows (which indicates that we don't really know how to enforce 
the requirement anyway).

Novell has an implementation that I believe follows the intent of the 
statement, but it does so by using a special protocol to add 
referrals--which is NOT at all in line with manageDSAIT and the referral 
object.

So, does anyone believe this statement should not be removed? If so, can 
you illustrate through the example of an implementation what it means, and 
how it may be achieved?

Jim

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From: Stig Venaas <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 23:07:56 +0100

> implementers "hanging" though in terms of what is intended but not 

Agree completely, I don't like it the way it is currently.

Stig