Dear NETMOD WG,

Since I started working with YANG, I have felt the impression that we tend to 
use the terms “module” and “model” indistinctly, leading to misunderstandings.

According to RFC7950:

“a data model describes how data is represented and accessed.”

And later we can find:

                “YANG structures data models into modules and submodules.”
And:
                “YANG data models are defined in modules.  A module contains a 
collection of related definitions.”

The identification and versioning of YANG modules and submodules is clear, and 
in fact, keeps evolving as we have seen in the YANG Semantic 
Versioning<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-netmod-yang-semver/> 
discussions. However, when it comes to YANG data models, to the best of my 
knowledge, there are no means for identifying them.

In my opinion, this is a limitation that is hindering the cataloguing and 
access to YANG data. From the standpoint of a data consumer, what you care 
about is the data model, that is, the compiled hierarchy or collection of 
imported, deviation, and augmentation modules. Let’s put an example with two 
different data models:


  1.  Module A (name: module-A) • augmented by Module B (name:module-B)
  2.  Module A (name: module-A) • augmented by Module C (name:module-C)

How do we refer to the first data model? Should we name it “module-A”, like the 
parent or root module? Please, also note here that concepts like “parent 
module” or “root module” have not been formally defined in the scope of YANG 
data modelling.

How about the second data model in the example? We cannot name it “module-A” as 
we would have a naming conflict with the first data model.

I have seen other activities within the IETF that have come across this issue. 
For instance, An Architecture for YANG-Push to Message Broker 
Integration<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-nmop-yang-message-broker-integration/00/>
 with the implementation of the YANG Schema Registry. In this case, the YANG 
data models (not the modules), and therefore, the YANG schemas, need to be 
uniquely identified in the registry. However, the algorithm used for generating 
the schema IDs is still unclear.

I think the YANG 
Packages<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-netmod-yang-packages/> 
draft aimed at solving this, though I’m missing why the document was abandoned. 
I would kindly appreciate I someone could shed some light.

Many thanks!

Best regards,
Nacho.


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