[apps-discuss] Apps-team review of draft-ietf-xcon-common-data-model-25.txt

Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com> Sat, 16 April 2011 17:29 UTC

Return-Path: <tbray@textuality.com>
X-Original-To: apps-discuss@ietfc.amsl.com
Delivered-To: apps-discuss@ietfc.amsl.com
Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ietfc.amsl.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8D296E073C for <apps-discuss@ietfc.amsl.com>; Sat, 16 Apr 2011 10:29:15 -0700 (PDT)
X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at amsl.com
X-Spam-Flag: NO
X-Spam-Score: -2.977
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.977 tagged_above=-999 required=5 tests=[BAYES_00=-2.599, FM_FORGED_GMAIL=0.622, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW=-1]
Received: from mail.ietf.org ([208.66.40.236]) by localhost (ietfc.amsl.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id mA4XIq+XcPEJ for <apps-discuss@ietfc.amsl.com>; Sat, 16 Apr 2011 10:29:14 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from mail-px0-f182.google.com (mail-px0-f182.google.com [209.85.212.182]) by ietfc.amsl.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 367C3E0735 for <apps-discuss@ietf.org>; Sat, 16 Apr 2011 10:29:14 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by pxi20 with SMTP id 20so2432981pxi.27 for <multiple recipients>; Sat, 16 Apr 2011 10:29:13 -0700 (PDT)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: by 10.68.48.38 with SMTP id i6mr3994319pbn.515.1302974952442; Sat, 16 Apr 2011 10:29:12 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.68.60.193 with HTTP; Sat, 16 Apr 2011 10:29:12 -0700 (PDT)
X-Originating-IP: [216.113.203.64]
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 10:29:12 -0700
Message-ID: <BANLkTikd6=Bo4db3N4x9TFKKoKPUWOGMig@mail.gmail.com>
From: Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com>
To: apps-discuss@ietf.org, esg@ietf.org, S Moonesamy <sm+ietf@elandsys.com>, alan.b.johnston@gmail.com, Oscar.Novo@ericsson.com, Gonzalo.Camarillo@ericsson.com, Dave.Morgan@fmr.com, jari.urpalainen@nokia.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Subject: [apps-discuss] Apps-team review of draft-ietf-xcon-common-data-model-25.txt
X-BeenThere: apps-discuss@ietf.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.12
Precedence: list
List-Id: General discussion of application-layer protocols <apps-discuss.ietf.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/options/apps-discuss>, <mailto:apps-discuss-request@ietf.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/apps-discuss>
List-Post: <mailto:apps-discuss@ietf.org>
List-Help: <mailto:apps-discuss-request@ietf.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/apps-discuss>, <mailto:apps-discuss-request@ietf.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 17:29:15 -0000

I have been selected as the Applications Area Review Team reviewer for
this draft (for background on apps-review, please see
http://www.apps.ietf.org/content/applications-area-review-team).

I'm not a strong enough SIP expert to express an opinion as to whether
this is ready for publication in the sense of it being a useful and
problem-free extension of the SIP standards framework.  However, it
seems a reasonable specification of a reasonable XML language
extension and I didn't see anything obviously broken at the SIP level;
there are a few nits, noted below, that should be addressed:

Observation: Element names given in double quotes, attribute names in
single quotes.  Odd.  Is this a convention?

General issue: There is much discussion of the values of various
elements.  There seems little discussion of whether exact case
matching is required, whether white-space on either side of the
designated values is allowed, and so on.  Is this obvious from the
context of the other SIP RFCs?  It would trouble me as an implementor.
 There are a couple of nits below where I've called this out.

Apology in advance: There are quite likely things I've called out that
would be obvious to a seasoned SIP implementor who is after all the
target of this draft; pardon the irritation.

Nits:

1. 3rd para "specifies by whom, and in which way that information" -
needs comma after 'way'

3.4 "defined in the data model" is unclear. You mean "the data model
in this specification" I think? But I'm not sure.

4.1 " A conference object document begins with the root element tag
<conference-info>" - the word 'tag' is superfluous here, not part of
the idiom used elsewhere in this document

4.2 <conference-description> takes a "lang" attribute.  Is this free
text, ISO 639, or takes its definition from elsewhere in the SIP
suite?  Shouldn't something be said?

4.2.6  "The <allow-sidebars> element represents a boolean value.  If
set to  TRUE" Does this mean the content of the element must be the
string TRUE?  Case-sensitive?  White-space before and after allowed?

4.2.9 2nd bullet - 'This attribute contains one of the following
values: "none", "administrator", "moderator",  "user", "observer", and
"participant". '  Is it obvious to a reader whether exact-matching is
required or case-mixing is allowed? Is white space allowed?  Apologies
if this is defined elsewhere and I missed it.

4.2.9 2nd bullet - " The roles semantic" - missing apostrophe after
"roles".  Also grammatically awkward, maybe "The roles' semantic
definitions are.."

4.2.9 3rd bullet - "The <mixing-end-offset> child element specifies
the time a conference media mixing stops" - superfluous "a" after
"time"

4.2.13 4th bullet - missing comma after "values"

4.4.1 "The <allow-conference-event-subscription> element represents a
boolean action. " - should 'action' be 'value'? (this idiom also
appears several more times in the draft)

4.5 " Other elements from different namespaces MAY be present for the
purposes of extensibility." I was a bit surprised to encounter this
for the first time here; does such extensibility not apply to all the
elements defined previously? If it's generally true, maybe move it up
to an introductory section?   If child namespaces are generally
disallowed and this is an exception, that also deserves saying at the
top of the document.  Section 6 suggests that extensibility is
generally allowed for elements in this language, in which case the
statement here is superfluous?

4.6.2 ""closedAuthenticated": A 'closedAuthenticated' policy MUST have
 each conference participant in the allowed users list (listed under
the <allowed-users-list> XML element" - 'XML' is superfluous, appears
a couple of times in this section

4.6.5 "4.6.5.  <user> and Its <user> Sub-elements" - title looks
funny, is the second <user> superfluous?

8. "Futhermore, users may use different namespaces to access to a
conference as explained in Section 4.6.5."  I revisited 4.6.5 and it
doesn't contain the word "namespace", it discusses user identifiers.
Should "namespace" be replaced by "identifier" in this paragraph?
Also "Futhermore" is misspelled.