Re: Equally capable referrals

["Timothy Hahn" <hahnt@us.ibm.com>]

So, in summary, it sounds like we have concensus on striking the sentence about "equally capable" and relying on the verbage around it to indicate the intent of the referral concept.

Regards,
Tim Hahn

Internet: hahnt@us.ibm.com
Internal: Timothy Hahn/Endicott/IBM@IBMUS or IBMUSM00(HAHNT)
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"Jim Sermersheim" <JIMSE@novell.com> 11/06/2001 08:28 PM

To:        <Kurt@OpenLDAP.org>         cc:        "Steve Sonntag" <VTAG.PRV-3.PROVO@novell.com>, <ietf-ldapbis@OpenLDAP.org>, <Stig.Venaas@uninett.no>, Timothy Hahn/Endicott/IBM@IBMUS         Subject:        Re: Equally capable referrals

Yes, I would prefer to reflect that there is no mechanism (within the referral) to 'weight' the referrals, thus any referral may be used to progress the operation. This doesn't prevent the client from imposing its own heuristics. 

I don't like implying that *some process* is absolutely responsible to somehow ensure the validity of the referrals.

Jim

>>> "Kurt D. Zeilenga" <Kurt@OpenLDAP.org> 11/06/01 06:02PM >>>
At 04:01 PM 2001-11-06, Jim Sermersheim wrote:
>This explains the intent of equally capable nicely, but my bigger question is: Who's responsibility is it to enforce the "MUSTness" of the statement? 

Well, given the wording of this particular MUST, it appears to
be server obligation return "equally capable" URLs.  Of course,
if the server uses namedref or dnsref or some other administrative
mechanism, then it server implementation really defers this
obligation to the deployer / administrator.

I think MUST and "equally capable" are a bit strong.
The key is that there is no preferred order and regardless of
which one service is contacted, that service should be
capable of furthering the operation towards completion.
Note the distinction between "completing the operation"
as opposed to "furthering the operation towards completion".
One must allowed the referred to server to return a referral.