Re: DN-alt issues

["RL 'Bob' Morgan" <rlmorgan@washington.edu>]

On 19 Aug 2002, Scott Seligman wrote:

> "Kurt D. Zeilenga" <Kurt@OpenLDAP.org> writes:
> >
> > I do, however, believe some clarifications to the current
> > I-D are needed.  In particular, the I-D should clearly state
> > that the table is not extensible.
>
> I've seen all the old e-mail, I know it's been hashed to death, I
> respect Kurt's opinions and don't expect to change his mind, but RFC
> 2253 (section 2.3, second paragraph) clearly indicates that the table
> *is* extensible.  The table in the RFC itself is described as "an
> example ... for a few of the attribute types", and the extension
> mechanism is (vaguely) described as "a published table... associated
> with LDAP [RFC 2252]".  Perhaps extensibility is a bad idea, and perhaps
> the extensibility mechanism as spec'ed is inadequate (though no more so
> than for syntaxes), but the spec says what it says.  It is inappropriate
> to change this in a BIS update, where the goal is clarifying an existing
> spec, not designing a better spec.

If the "published table" had been well-established and had actually been
extended since 2252 was published, then we wouldn't be talking about
changing its nature.  But it's the lack of clarity on what the table is in
the first place that's the reason we're discussing it.  Deciding that a
table that in practice has never been extended is now by definition
non-extensible is within scope, in my opinion.

 - RL "Bob"