Subject: Re: Last Call: <draft-ietf-netmod-iana-timezones-03.txt> (IANA Timezone Database YANG Module) to Proposed Standard

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 19:36:31 -0800

At 12:46 03-12-2013, The IESG wrote:
>The IESG has received a request from the NETCONF Data Modeling Language
>WG (netmod) to consider the following document:
>- 'IANA Timezone Database YANG Module'
>   <draft-ietf-netmod-iana-timezones-03.txt> as Proposed Standard
>
>The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
>final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
>[email-masked] mailing lists by 2013-12-17. Exceptionally, comments may be

There is the following question in the document shepherd write-up:

   Why is this the proper type of RFC?

I did not see an answer to that question.

The WGLC was from 5 July to 22 July.  There wasn't any comments 
during the WGLC.  The only comment I found was one posted on 9 August.

In Section 1:

   "The iana-timezones YANG module defines the iana-
    timezone type, which is a serialization of the existing IANA Time
    Zone registry [RFC6557] into YANG format."

The terminology in RFC 6557 defines a TZ Database sometimes referred 
to as the "Olson Database".  There isn't any mention of a "IANA Time 
Zone registry".  I suggest using the same name as in RFC 6557.

 From Section 3:

   'The iana-timezones module is intended to reflect the IANA "timezone
    database" [RFC6557].  When a timezone location is added to the
    database, the "iana-timezone" enumeration MUST be updated as defined
    in RFC 6020 Section 10 to add the newly created timezone location to
    the enumeration.  The new "enum" statement MUST be added to the
    "iana-timezone" typedef with the same name as the newly added
    timezone location.  A new enum value MUST be allocated by IANA and
    applied to the newly created enum entry.  New entries MAY be placed
    in any order in the enumeration as long as the previously assigned
    enumeration values are not changed.

    If a timezone location is removed from the IANA timezone database,
    the corresponding existing enum statement is kept and a status
    statement is added to mark the enum entry as 'obsolete'.'

The maintainer of the TZ database is responsible for the TZ 
Database.  The person does not work for IANA.  I don't think that 
IANA keeps track of the contents of the TZ Database as it was not 
asked to do that work.  I don't see the value of using RFC 2119 key 
word for the IANA Considerations.

I suggest not creating the registry proposed in this draft.  The TZ 
database has strived to keep out of political issues.  Adding such a 
registry will pave the way for such issues.

Regards,
-sm