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RE: section 3.2 of draft-ietf-ops-mib-review-guidelines-00.txt



At 2/9/2003:03:43 PM, C. M. Heard wrote:

Hi Mike,

>...
>I interpret the words
>
>   Each of the specified ... must be defined in the same information
>   module as [the one in which] the ... macro appears.
>
>to mean that module B can't import notifications or objects from
>module A and define a group that includes them.  To put it another
>another way:  every group defineed in module B may contain only
>objects or notifications defined in module B.

Well, as much as I favor the guidance that Bert
first put forward, I have to admit that your
interpretation of the (snipped) cited text would
seem correct.  (And I ought to be happy about that,
since I definitely favor firm rules concerning SMI
interpretation.)  However -- and I do apologize for
the "Clintonesque" nature of this comment :-) --
but I guess one could question the proper meaning
of "defined" here and ask whether it might not
extend to include IMPORTed objects.  This would
depend on the mapping of IMPORTS to something
like "#include".

I think the fact that you said this (in response
to Dan's remarks):

"Even if no set of groups in module A has exactly the objects that
you need to re-use in module B, you can still express your
requirements in a compliance statement in module B.  The way to
do so is to mention some set of groups in module A than includes
all the objects that you need, and then mention all the objects
that you don't need in OBJECT clauses that have a MIN-ACCESS of
not-accessible.  Of course, if there are a lot if excluded objects
then module B's compliance statement won't be very easy to read."

...suggests that the desired functionality can be
legitimately obtained but only via a high measure
of superfluity...and to me that suggests that a
more straightforward way ought to be specified.

However, above all, I will be happy with a
definitive answer.  As much as I agree with
Bert's basic position on this, I don't agree
that just because something is not explicitly
forbidden we should then assume that it's
permitted.

Cheers,

BobN