Re: [MIB-DOCTORS] normative references and REFERENCE clauses

["David B Harrington" <dbharrington at comcast.net>]

I recommend these references be handled in the same way as IMPORT
references.

dbh 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mib-doctors-bounces at ietf.org 
> [mailto:mib-doctors-bounces at ietf.org] On Behalf Of Juergen 
> Schoenwaelder
> Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2009 2:46 AM
> To: mib-doctors at ietf.org
> Subject: [MIB-DOCTORS] normative references and REFERENCE clauses
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have a MIB module in AUTH48 and the following question popped up.
> The MIB modules has something similar to this:
> 
> FancyString TEXTUAL-CONVENTION
>     -- description etc. removed with a normative reference to 3629
>     REFERENCE
>        "RFC 3629: UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646"
>     SYNTAX OCTET STRING
> 
> Since the content of this RFC to be normatively depends on RFC 3629,
I
> included RFC 3629 in the normative reference section. As RFC 4181
> points out, the RFC editor has a policy that you can't have a
> reference in an RFC that is not cited and they do not like to cite
the
> reference in the MIB module because the MIB module can be extracted
> and thus there is a dangling citation. Given this, it seems I have
two
> options:
> 
> a) Remove RFC 3629 from the normative references. This is the
easiest
>    solution but then any tools analyzing normative dependencies
>    between RFCs will likely miss a normative reference, which sounds
>    like a bad idea.
> 
> b) Add extra text somewhere outside the MIB module to establish a
>    citation to RFC 3629. This adds some verbiage but ensures that
the
>    normative dependency gets properly recorded.
> 
> The third option, namely to try to change the RFC editor policy, I
did
> not consider seriously. ;-)
> 
> I checked RFC 4181 but it only has guidelines on IMPORTs. So do we
> generally prefer option a) or b). If there is a clear preference,
> should 4181bis be extended to handle the situation where REFERENCE
> clauses refer normatively to other documents that are not cited
> outside the MIB module?
> 
> /js
> 
> PS: I am bringing this question up here because I am editing a much
>     larger document where this issue is much more dominant and so I
>     want to be consistent.
> 
> -- 
> Juergen Schoenwaelder           Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH
> Phone: +49 421 200 3587         Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen, Germany
> Fax:   +49 421 200 3103         <http://www.jacobs-university.de/>
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