Subject: Let's be careful with those XML submissions to IANA

From: "Tom.Petch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 15:20:53 +0200

Looking at RFC5102 (IPFIXinfo), it, like many RFC, has normative definitions
in the body of the document and a non-normative appendix, which, since it
brings the definitions together, is easier and so more likely to be used.

Indeed, the IANA considerations, s.7, tell IANA to register the non-normative
appendix which is fine as long as the two are in step but what happens when they
are not?

In fact, they do differ slightly.

The IANA considerations register
   URI: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:ipfix-info-15
   XML: See Appendix B for this document.

whereas Appendix B says that the name is
   <schema targetNamespace="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:ipfix-info"
which is what is in the IANA registry.

IANA have used Appendix B and so have got the right answer
by doing the 'wrong' thing.

(Interestingly the last I-D of this document had, in Appendix B,
 <schema targetNamespace="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:ipfix-info-10"
 xmlns:ipfix="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:ipfix-info-10")

What if an error is discovered in the body of the document (I have not looked
at it in any detail) and an erratum is raised against it?  Does this implicitly
request IANA to update the registry? Does it matter whether the erratum is
against the appendix or the body of the document?

(I think this is called the distributed database problem:-)

 Tom Petch

---

From: Doug Barton <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 10:53:35 -0700

Assuming that there actually is a contradiction here (and I don't know
anything about IPFIX so I won't hazard a guess) the end result is a
quality-control problem that should be brought to the attention of the
RFC Editor.

If I understand your comments below correctly, you're encouraging
document authors and reviewers to have better attention to detail,
which I agree is also a good takeaway.

Finally, please remember this example the next time you're tempted to
complain about how long it takes the RFC Editor and/or IANA to take
action on a document. Reasonable concerns about processing timeliness
aside, y'all are not so easy to work with as you would sometimes like
to believe.  :)

Doug

Tom.Petch wrote:
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