Re: Registries

[Tim Hudson <tjh@cryptsoft.com>]

On 9/03/2011 6:37 AM, bob.nixon@emulex.com wrote:
> KMIP is considering the need for registration of vendor-specific protocol
> extensions. Should that be determined unavoidable, consideration should be
> given to this very recently updated ISO/IEC procedure for maintaining a
> registry in support of an open standard.

I'd characterise this somewhat differently - we have an approved standard which
allows for vendor extensions which dictates 'registration' of those extensions
in some form for interoperability. The current process is an informal one.

I understand where you are coming from on this topic - however I do think you
are thinking in a substantially different area to what is normally used for
OASIS basis standards.

Other OASIS standards take the approach of using a URI as a self-managed
registration mechanism to provide the 'uniqueness' item along with some hand
waving about how to make it work in practice. Or simply use the OASIS process
itself to publish updates.

Have a look at the IANA procedures for various items.
See the W3C approach http://www.w3.org/2002/06/registering-mediatype.html
Look at how SNMP is handled. Look at X.509 extensions management.

We are talking about registration of vendor specific information within an
existing protocol where the extension mechanism is defined by that protocol.

I do think we need to keep in mind the context of the information and the
standards body that is being used. I don't see that the ISO or IEEE approach is
appropriate. I've use the IEEE registration approach and also worked with a
number of ISO standards which ended up establishing their own registration
approach - none of which were particularly fast to establish.

Has anyone seen any formal approaches used in other OASIS TCs?

Entirely separate from how to handle registration are the questions on how to
make the information available and useful to clients (and servers) in the
context of KMIP. So far I've received no feedback on that topic.

Tim.