Re: [kmip-comment] Possible solution to referencing issues

[Mark Joseph <mark@p6r.com>]

My second related beef, is that the text of the profiles should be the authoritative source for what compliance actually means (i.e., the normative text). If you have to look at the conformance test details, which in ISO would simply be "informative" text, you've potentially lost the battle to ensure interoperability  with KMIP.

Hi Eric, I want to make sure I understand what you are saying here.   The "conformance test details" you are referring to are the detailed test case documents?

 I have done a lot of work with IETF standards, for example the SSH RFCs.   I got to tell you they are terrible.   There are so many different interpretations that when I was building my company's version of an SSH server (from scratch) the only way I got it to work was to test it against the SSH server on linux.   There is no other way that would work.    I have also worked on several IETF email protocols and even though those specs are better the only way to get an implementation to work is again by testing it against many other implementations.   I have been doing this protocol development for too long.

What I really liked about KMIP was the conformance test details.   My company P6R ships a KMIP client.   And those conformance test details where extremely helpful in both building our client and testing with KMIP servers.   When there is a disagreement about what should go over the wire, as there always is, those detailed test details are the ultimate form of reference for both server and client.

I only wish that the SSH IETF documents had something similar.

Best Regards,

Mark Joseph, PhD

President, P6R Inc.

mark@p6r.com