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RE: Place Holders



>>>>> On Thu, 3 Jul 2003, Andy Bierman wrote:
Andy> At 12:10 AM 7/3/2003, Romascanu, Dan (Dan) wrote:
Andy> >Why should we leave them in? I understand that this is legal
Andy> >SMI, but this smells like documented OID sparseness. One of the
Andy> >MIBs I authored lately received a comment from the MIB Doctor
Andy> >concerning OID sparseness. That one was caused as it often
Andy> >happens because of the evolution of the MIB, some OIDs being
Andy> >removed in the process, because the WG decided not to implement
Andy> >the objects. I fail to see the difference. If OID sparseness is
Andy> >a bad thing, we should avoid creating such cases by reserving
Andy> >OIDs for 'future use'.
Andy> 
Andy> Maybe the WG is going to implement objects under the placeholder
Andy> OID later.  In any case, this is a totally trivial problem.
Andy> It doesn't matter either way.  This has no impact on implementation.
Andy> This is just MIB style, about as important as the number of
Andy> spaces you should indent before starting a comment.

There is one significant drawback to using placeholder OIDs if they are
intended to be used for objects defined in a separate document:  it is
a lot easier to make transcription errors (e.g., erroneously importing
an OID descriptor defined in the "base" document into two "extension"
documents) when OIDs are managed this way than it is when all OIDs in a
given MIB module have a prefix unique to that module, namely the module's
the MODULE-IDENTITY value, whichis usually assigned by the IANA.  Recall
the discussion on the mreview@ops.ietf.org list regarding WG-assigned
vs. IANA-assigned OID "roots".

Having said that, I agree 100% with the following:

>>>>> On Thu, 3 Jul 2003, Romascanu, Dan (Dan) wrote:
Dan> Thanks. This looks like a wise and balanced approach. Thanks to
Dan> everybody for the time and bandwidth consumed on advising on
Dan> this (rather minor) issue. Dan
Dan> 
Dan> 
Dan> > -----Original Message-----
Dan> > From: Wijnen, Bert (Bert) [mailto:bwijnen@lucent.com]
Dan> > Sent: 03 July, 2003 2:57 PM
Dan> > To: Andy Bierman; Romascanu, Dan (Dan)
Dan> > Cc: Robert Moore; Harrington, David; mibs@ops.ietf.org
Dan> > Subject: RE: Place Holders
Dan> > 
Dan> > 
Dan> > I personally do not like such/any non-specific reserved OID
Dan> > branches. Neither do I like spareseness in OID assignment.
Dan> > And so I always mention it when I see it and ask: why?
Dan> > And suggest: would it not be better to make it contiguous
Dan> > (certainly at PS time this is the last time it can
Dan> > easily be done).
Dan> > 
Dan> > But as stated before, it is not a violation. So Dan, I would
Dan> > point it out to the authors and WG and suggest to them to
Dan> > (re-)consider if this is wise/wanted. Not that it would block 
Dan> > further progress of the document.
Dan> > 
Dan> > Thanks,
Dan> > Bert 

//cmh