Re: "Last Look" at the RADIUS Design Guidelines document

[Alan DeKok <aland@deployingradius.com>]

Wojciech Dec (wdec) wrote:
> Well, I don't think anyone proposed that. Instead, the proposal at least
> as I understood it to be (and support), is that the design guidelines
> should not be used as bar/ban/stick on complex attributes design and
> should have text to that effect.

  It does not bar complex attributes.

  It *does* recommend against complex systems where simpler ones would
suffice.  This is an engineering practice going back 50+ years.

> The current set-up looks like to me like this: During the (undoubtedly
> lengthy) discussions around complex attributes under the "extended
> attributes" banner, someone will claim "these attributes don't work with
> my foobar radius server implementation and are against the BCP of the WG
> itself".

  Which will be false.

  Multiple people supporting the guidelines document have agreed that
complex attributes belong in the "extended attributes" document.  Use
*that* to defend the push for complex attributes.

> Even after such design, one will have a BCP that says one thing
> and another doc something else. This will be confusing to anyone trying
> to make sense of it.

  You're putting a pretty low bar on the intelligence of anyone reading
the RFCs.  The IETF has a process where one document can be marked as
"updating" another.  WG progress shouldn't stop because one person is
confused about how that works.

  Alan DeKok.

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