----- Original Message -----
From: "Juergen Schoenwaelder" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2017 8:40 PM

> On Tue, Jun 20, 2017 at 02:19:32PM -0400, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
> > I was going to just watch this, but I can't.
> >
> > To call protocol negotiated values "configuration" is to create a
usage
> > which will confuse MANY people.
>
> There are people who have a broad concept of configuration and there
> are people who have a narrow concept of configuration. There is not
> way to resolve this. All we can do is come up with a terminology that
> is consistent and can be used consistently.

Juergen, Robert,

This is what triggered my post (which I have been mulling ever since
ietf-netmod-revised-datastores appeared).

There has been a narrow (IMHO) definition in use for over a decade to
whit

'Configuration data is the set of writable data that is required to
   transform a system from its initial default state into its current
   state.  '

which I have accepted as the basis of this work (having previously used
a much wider definition) .

'Data that determines how a device behaves' seems to me a much wider
definition encompassing much of 'state' as has been defined for the past
decade.

I don't expect to have to read the rest of the I-D (about the kinds of
configuration) to find out that the definition does not mean what it
appears to say; I may have to read on to fully understand it but the
words as written seem to brook no misunderstanding!

Having ' This data is modeled in YANG using "config true" nodes ' sort
of suggests that the original definition holds sway and so contradicts
the previous sentence.  And for this sentence to make sense, a reader
would really have to understand the debates over configuration, state
and how to model them that have been going on for so long which means
that regardless of how true it is, it does not really belong in a
definition.

There is no reference back to the previous definition, as to whether or
not the latest definition is meant to be the same or not.  I find this
confusing.

I think that the previous definition has to appear in this I-D, since it
has influenced so much work, and this I-D then needs to go on to say

'We are revising it ..
or
'We are not revising it ...

I have read the later posts but this one seemed to catch the crux of my
discontent.

Tom Petch

> > Even worse, configuring protocol learned
> > values is liable to break things.  To use one example, many
protocols
> > negotiate timers.  The value that a given systems starts with is the
> > configured value.  The value that it learns from the protocol
exchange is
> > the operational value.  In fact, you better not try to configure
that value
> > or you are liable to break the protocol.
>
> Nobody proposed this, please take a look at the figure in the document
> to understand the information flow and where the distinction is made.
>
> /js
>
> --
> 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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