Subject: [salud] Fwd: draft-ietf-salud-alert-info-urns / high level concerns

From: Laura Liess <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2012 16:45:51 +0200

Hi,

Alfred's comments forwarded...

Thanks
Laura

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alfred HÎnes <[email-masked]>
Date: 2012/5/3
Subject: Re: draft-ietf-salud-alert-info-urns / high level concerns
To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Cc: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>

Dale,
at 26 April 2010, you wrote ...
>> From: [email-masked]
>>
>> ...
>  ...
>
>> a)  As soon as time avails, I'll take a closer look at the
>>     (URN-specific parts of the) current I-D and provide feedback.
>
> That would be good.  We are in WGLC ending 8 May.

I'm a bit late, but eventually I've been able now to start studying
draft-ietf-salud-alert-info-urns-06.

I copy Leslie Daigle (urn-nid IANA Expert).

Before proceding and going into details, I'd like to raise my primary
high-level concern and ask you to provide additional information.
(As you know, folks say that someone doing so could be an indication
that something's missing in the draft ...)
Please beware that I don't have the time to follow your WG discussions
and the primary focus of my review is the URN namespace registration
that the I-D intends to perform.

As it stands, the draft would most likely _not_ pass the urn-nid
Expert Review process (which the PROTO writeup template makes clear
needs to be undergone before the draft can be forwarded to the IESG),
because mandatory sections (per RFC 3406) are missing.
In particular, there are no Community Considerations and Namespace
Considerations sections in the I-D.  The draft only contains short
topical paragraphs with such headlines in the registration template;
but RFC 3406 does not specify that -- it calls for solid Sections
in the registration document.  The present paragraph for Community
Considerations might do the job, but the Namespace Considerations
are simply much too terse.

Among the questions to be asked and responded to in such section
would have been _which_ alternate namespaces have been considered and
_why_ no other existing namespace would fulfill the needs/requirements.

For instance, you want to let IANA manage the new URN namespace.
But IANA already manages a specific URN namespace for IETF protocol
parameters -- see RFC 2648 for URN:IETF and RFC 3553 for the
sub-namespace URN:IETF:PARAMS .  Thus, it immediately came to my
mind upon reading the initial sections of the I-D that, e.g.,
urn:ietf:params:alert  might likely be a proper home for the
intended usage.
If the draft contained the aforementioned sections (per RFC 3406),
it would have had to explain there why a new URN Namespace is needed
and the alert information cannot be placed into a sub-namespace of
URN:IETF:PARAMS (or maybe of URN:IETF, or any other potentially
suitable existing namespace).

Have such alternatives been considered?

Note that, if you'd switch to using URN:IETF:PARAMS, you would avoid
the urn-nid Expert Review process entirely and would not need the
RFC 3406 template, but only the much more simple template per
RFC 3553, Section 4, which IMHO would be very suitable in this case.

If you can show me that such considerations have taken place and
are documented, the arguments need to be put into the draft;
otherwise, I think this topic would need to be brought to your WG.

Please give me an indication so I can customize my review comments.

>
>> b)  Did you consider the ongoing work of URNbis?
>
> No, it started work well after Salud was going.

Well, maybe looking into the rfc3406bis draft and the related
discussion might have helped to better understand RFC 3406
requirements for URN Namespace registration documents.   :-(

> Dale [chair of Salud]

Kind regards,
 Alfred.
[co-chair of URNbis]

--

+------------------------+--------------------------------------------+
| TR-Sys Alfred Hoenes   |  Alfred Hoenes   Dipl.-Math., Dipl.-Phys.  |
| Gerlinger Strasse 12   |  Phone: (+49)7156/9635-0, Fax: -18         |
| D-71254  Ditzingen     |  E-Mail:  [email-masked]                     |
+------------------------+--------------------------------------------+

---

From: "Worley, Dale R (Dale)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 May 2012 17:42:44 -0400

I forgot to send this to the Salud mailing list!

Dale

________________________________________
From: Worley, Dale R (Dale) [[email-masked]]
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 5:18 PM
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: RE: missing "replaces" metadata / Alert-Info URNs

[as chair]

> From: [email-masked] [[email-masked]]
>
> OTOH ... Since you want to register a URN Namespace, you'll have
> to undergo the expert review process (using the urn-nid list),
> as per RFC 3406 (and the rfc3406bis draft doesn't change that)
> before you can forward your draft to the IESG, and quickly browsing
> the urn-nid archives, I did not find evidence that this has been
> done so far.
>
> The usual timeline for WG documents [...]

We will see how we can make it work.  At first reading, RFC 3406
suggests that the request for review and NID assignment is made *by*
the publishing of an RFC.  But that seems inefficient...

> So maybe you will like to hurry up to present your I-D to the
> [email-masked] (attach the template from the draft and give
> a pointer to the I-D).

It's clear that we need to make some improvements in the Namespace
Registration Template.  There are complex and conflicting requirements
that the Alert-Info URNs must satisfy, and these result in some of the
more unusual features of the proposed URN scheme.  We need to ensure
that these requirements are explained in a way that is clear to people
who have not been immersed in the problem for the past two years!

Dale