Last Call Review of draft-bundesbank-eurosystem-namespace-02
review-bundesbank-eurosystem-namespace-02-genart-lc-black-2013-11-30-00

I am the assigned Gen-ART reviewer for this draft. For background on
Gen-ART, please see the FAQ at

<

http://wiki.tools.ietf.org/area/gen/trac/wiki/GenArtfaq>.

Please resolve these comments along with any other Last Call comments
you may receive.

Document: draft-bundesbank-eurosystem-namespace-02
Reviewer: David L. Black
Review Date: November 29, 2013
IETF LC End Date: December 6, 2013
IESG Telechat date: December 19, 2013

Summary: This draft is on the right track, but has open issues
described in the review.

This draft registers a formal URN namespace in accordance with the
guidelines in RFC 3406 for the use of the European System of Central
Banks in cross-border securities settlement.  The draft is clear
and concise.

Major issues: One - the Community Considerations section of this draft
is insufficient.

An important concern that this draft should address is whether and why
a formal URN namespace is appropriate vs. an informal namespace - see
RFC 3406 for more information on URN namespace types.

Section 3.3 of RFC 3406 advises:

   A formal namespace may be requested, and IETF review sought, in cases
   where the publication of the NID proposal and the underlying
   namespace will provide benefit to some subset of users on the
   Internet.  That is, a formal NID proposal, if accepted, must be
   functional on and with the global Internet, not limited to users in
   communities or networks not connected to the Internet.

The rationale for a formal namespace thus depends strongly on the contents
of the Community Considerations section of the registration request, about
which Section 4 of RFC 3406 has this to say:

   The RFC must also include a "Community Considerations" section, which
   indicates the dimensions upon which the proposer expects its
   community to be able to benefit by publication of this namespace as
   well as how a general Internet user will be able to use the space if
   they care to do so.

In this proposal, that explanation ("indicates the dimensions ...")
consists of two sentences:

   The Eurosystem TARGET2-Securities messages are exchanged in IP
   networks.  The message-related resources being persistently named
   need to be referred to in the public Internet.

That is a good start, but it is not sufficient, particularly the second
sentence quoted above.  The draft should explain why the resources for
which this namespace is requested need to be referred to in the public
Internet and (ideally) how the public in general (e.g., "a general
Internet user") may benefit from being able to refer to such resources.
An example would be helpful - one possibility is that if this namespace
will be used to name publically accessible records or documents, persistent
identifiers are clearly useful in unambiguously designating the record
or document that is being referred to in another context (e.g., policy
discussions, input to governmental or other regulatory bodies).

Minor issues: None

Nits/editorial comments: None, idnits 2.13.00 ran clean.

Thanks,
--David
----------------------------------------------------
David L. Black, Distinguished Engineer
EMC Corporation, 176 South St., Hopkinton, MA  01748
+1 (508) 293-7953             FAX: +1 (508) 293-7786
david.black at emc.com        Mobile: +1 (978) 394-7754
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