SMIng consensus issues restated, call for consensus ends September 18, 2002

["Durham, David" <david.durham@intel.com>]

I have prepared this message to the mailing list to initiate a last call on
the wg consensus for items raised during the IETF and interim meetings. This
last call is also for the edification of those on the list who have not
read/commented on the meeting minutes.

There are several items that achieved clear consensus in the wg meetings.
This mail is to confirm that the mailing list is not of a different opinion.

There is consensus that it is a requirement:

1. That the sming supports N-levels of nesting. This includes the nesting of
complex data structures, unions, and multidimensional constructs such as
arrays. [See the 53rd IETF SMIng meeting minutes for more details] 

2. That the sming take advantage of the hierarchical oid namespace to
achieve consensus item number 1. That is, the naming scheme should map
directly to the n-levels of nesting as is in Andy Bierman's smi-ds proposal.
[See the 53rd IETF SMIng meeting minutes for more details] 

3. The smiv2 definitions be convertible to sming (meaning that sming is
backwards compatible with smiv2). It is not a requirement that new sming
definitions map back to the smiv2. [See the June 2002 SMIng Interim meeting
minutes for more details] 

4. The existing smi look-and-feel will be preserved where possible. There
are exceptions for new constructs in the sming language. Also, where the
existing smi syntax is broken it should be fixed. [See the 53rd IETF SMIng
meeting minutes and June Interim meeting minutes for more details] 

5. Backward compatibility of the new sming with the SPPI is not a
requirement. [See the 54th IETF SMIng meeting minutes for more details] 

Note that the last call period for these items ends in two weeks, on
September 18th.

Cheers,
-Dave