Subject: Re: Anyone there?

From: Randy Presuhn <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 11:54:01 -0700 (PDT)

Hi - 

> Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 14:11:25 -0400
> From: [email-masked] (Maria Greene)
> To: "C. Adam Stolinski" <[email-masked]>
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: Anyone there?
> 
> 
> >>>>> "C" == C Adam Stolinski <[email-masked]> writes:
...
>     C> In the interest of common open-standard, I would not want any
>     C> changes in RFC 1628 that would create incompatibilities with
>     C> the PDC 1.0.
...

RFC 1628 has lots of DisplayString objects.  Would loosening this
constraint to allow UTF-8 for internationalization (SnmpAdminString) cause
problems?  The underlying syntax (OCTET STRING) and length constraints
would presumably be unchanged.

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---

From: [email-masked] (Maria Greene)
Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 15:25:18 -0400

>>>>> "Randy" == Randy Presuhn <[email-masked]> writes:
    ...

    Randy> RFC 1628 has lots of DisplayString objects.  Would
    Randy> loosening this constraint to allow UTF-8 for
    Randy> internationalization (SnmpAdminString) cause problems?  The
    Randy> underlying syntax (OCTET STRING) and length constraints
    Randy> would presumably be unchanged.

Hi, Randy. Good question. According to the "letter of the law"
(RFC1902, section 10.2) it can't be. I believe we would need to
deprecate and re-define the objects. However, agents implemented to
the old MIB would still be conformant to the new definition, so this
seems overly restrictive. I believe we would have to get "special
dispensation" to make this change without giving the objects new
OBJECT IDENTIFIERs. How important do you think this is? It effects
many working groups with MIBs that are advancing so maybe it should be
discussed on the v3 list?

Maria