RE: Status of the WG

[Michael Kirkham <mikek@muonics.com>]

Speaking for myself, I sort of lost interest (or at least stopped paying
much attention) when the issue of whether or not SMIng would continue to
use follow the so-called "adapted subset of ASN.1" style or move to a new
grammar such as that of the IRTF proposal seemed to be undetermined.  I
figured at that point that I'd be better off waiting until that was
settled before getting too involved.  I believe there are a number of
significant benefits to adopting a new grammar, and had started an
implementation of the IRTF proposal, but set that effort aside when this
course became undecided.  I also made a few proposals/suggestions earlier
on (in the area of syntax refinements and operations) that received no
response.  That might have been because I didn't fully develop the
proposals as an I-D; I don't know.

I figured my resources were better spent towards supporting all of the
more obscure/rarely used/rarely supported aspects of SMIv2 until the
choice of grammar was more settled upon.  Those efforts are now complete,
so I have a renewed interest in SMIng and had planned to attend the
upcoming IETF meeting of the SMIng working group planned to meet.

As a compiler vendor I have a vested interest in supporting SMIng in
whatever form it takes, but not settling the ASN.1-like vs. New Grammar
issue seems to me to be a little detrimental to the SMIng effort.  More
recent discussions seemed to be based around the idea that SMIng would
continue to be ASN.1-like, which I think is unfortunate.

If SMIng isn't going to happen at this point, then I do feel strongly that
an SMIv2bis or v2.1 is needed that...

* Addresses the immediate shortcomings of SMIv2 that MIB authors have
no choice but to make kludges around (e.g. lack of 64-bit integers).

* Resolves the large number of ambiguous areas where SMIv2 is silent, has
conflicting wording, or provides one no choice but to look to ASN.1 for
the rules or assume a least-common-denominator stance in their
implementation.

* De-couples (completely) the grammar/rules from the ASN.1 specs (such
that, even if it "looks like" ASN.1, the terms and complete notation --
not just broken macros and a handful of descriptive paragraphs -- are
all defined within the SMI specs such that the ASN.1 docs are irrelevant
and need not be referenced by the SMI in any way).

It was decided long ago that such issues would not be addressed in an
update to SMIv2, but rather in SMIng.  If the SMIng effort is to be
abandoned then I believe an update to SMIv2 is in order.

On Thu, 13 Feb 2003, Durham, David wrote:

> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 09:39:02 -0800
> From: "Durham, David" <david.durham@intel.com>
> To: "Wijnen, Bert (Bert)" <bwijnen@lucent.com>,
>      "Sming (E-mail)" <sming@ops.ietf.org>
> Cc: "Randy Bush (E-mail)" <randy@psg.com>
> Subject: RE: Status of the WG
>
> The silence is deafening, and says it all. It seems that while most are
> in agreement that SMI is seriously antiquated, convoluted, and requires
> several maintenance fixes, there is very little (apparently zero now)
> interest in fixing it and improving it. It would seem people are
> satisfied with SNMP being regulated to a legacy systems management
> interface.
>
> There is the realization that up-to-date data modeling languages are
> already widely used and available (e.g. XMLSchema), and that the IETF
> should not be engaged in the task of inventing yet another idiosyncratic
> data modeling language... Particularly given that it will seriously
> languish behind those that are commonly available today.
>
> Looking at the ROI on this effort, there are those who are asking why
> not just adopt what is already available and stop beating a dead horse
> in the hopes it will rise.
>
> -Dave
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Wijnen, Bert (Bert) [mailto:bwijnen@lucent.com]
> >
> > So... not much (if anything) seems to be happening.
> >
>

--
Michael Kirkham
www.muonics.com