Also as co-chair: It may also help to look at our charter for this point. The charter, at http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html, says: The working group will clarify text where necessary. It may also make adjustments to the registration process and the form of the registry if this is deemed appropriate based on ongoing registration and operational experience. These adjustments and clarifications are not expected to delay the progress of the work.First, please note the word "adjustments" for "the form of the registry". It may be possible to see a change to XML as an "adjustment", but it would be a rather big one. Second, please note the words "based on ongoing registration and operational experience". I have not heard about any registration or operational experience that would suggest that we need to switch to XML. Even if we were at the start of our WG work (rather than close to the end), these two points would cast strong doubts on whether an change to XML would even be within our charter.
Third, please note the words "are not expected to delay the progress of the work". It is unclear whether a transition to XML, in the event it would it have been appropriate under the above circumstances, could have been done without delaying the WG work. However, it is very clear that if the WG were instructed to change to an XML format at this point in time, this would significantly delay our work, which would be against our charter.
Overall, I think it's a great idea that IANA is working towards using XML. For many registries which are currently maintained just in an ad-hoc, ill-defined format, this could potentially be a great improvement. However, it would be strange if the IETF took a willingness of IANA to move to XML as an order to IETF WGs to change their formats to XML. This would reflect extremely badly on the autonomy of the IETF and its ability to make decisions in the best technical interest of the relevant communities.
Regards, Martin. On 2009/05/25 7:06, Randy Presuhn wrote:
Hi -From: "Alexey Melnikov"<alexey.melnikov at isode.com> To: "LTRU Working Group"<ltru at ietf.org> Cc: "Martin J. Dürst"<duerst at it.aoyama.ac.jp>; "Randy Presuhn"<randy_presuhn at mindspring.com> Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2009 5:23 AM Subject: Additional issues with 4646bis raised by an Apps Review Team review...3). Registry format: IANA is switching its registries to XML. The WG should consider switching the format. Alternatively 4646bis should be updated to specify reasons for keeping the existing format.... As co-chair: The working group considered and extensively discussed this alternative in the summer of 2006, reaching a peak in September 2006 when IANA announced its intent to use XML. There was no clear consensus for change. It had previously been discussed during the work on RFC 4646, and in that case, too, failed to gain a critical mass of support. Since this would be a significant change to the specification and would directly impact tools which process the registry, I'd only be willing to entertain such a change if there were overwhelming support from the WG. As a technical contributor: As I've said before, I think XML makes sense. However, I do not think the extra delay required to change the specification would be worthwhile, and consequently would only go along with such a change if there were strong support from the implementation community. Randy _______________________________________________ Ltru mailing list Ltru at ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltru
-- #-# Martin J. Dürst, Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University #-# http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp mailto:duerst at it.aoyama.ac.jp
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