From: "Vijay K. Gurbani" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

   > The problem I see is that the table is not labeled as a mataphor; it
   > is described as if its existence is mandatory.  But what the standard
   > will actually prescribe is the *behavior* that is carried out by the
   > example mechanism you are describing; 

   I think you are being too literal about the table; the table itself
   is first described in S5, the opening paragraph of which is: "This
   section is tutorial in nature, and does not specify any normative
   behavior."  Thus, I do not see how one can construe that the existence
   of the table is mandatory.  Furthermore, rfc3261 essentially uses
   the same information in S18, where it talks about "These connections
   are indexed by the tuple formed from the address, port, and transport
   protocol at the far end of the connection."  The table in connect-
   reuse is the same information, albeit in an easy to visualize manner.
   I really do not see the harm.

After thinking about this some more, I'll retract my objection.  In
principle, I think the problem still stands, but this case is simple
enough that no trouble can result.

Do note:  You introduce the table in section 5, which is marked
non-normative.  But you refer to the table 16 times in section 8,
which is marked normative, and furthermore you don't re-introduce the
table or its behavior.  Which, unless I've overlooked something again,
means that the normative section 8 contains a prerequisite reference
to the non-normative section 5.  I think you're going to have to
adjust that.

   >    > The use of "alias descriptor" is unfortunate.  To start with, it is 
   >    > confusing -- initially I mistook it for some sort of identification
   >    > of the row of the alias table.  But the concept of "descriptor" as
   >    > being a small integer identifying a network connection, as well as
   >    > the very term "descriptor", are Unix-specific.
   > 
   >    Anything wrong with that :-) ?
   > 
   > In a standard?

   Sure ... this is the IETF, right?  This protocol specification is
   supposed to be read by programmers who would know what a Unix-
   style file descriptor is.  In fact, if you go back to rfc2543, it
   actually had actual *C code* for demonstrating how to write a forking
   proxy (which I must say was great for understanding forking
   mechanics when I wrote my first forking proxy back in 1998.)  Other
   RFCs also have code and domain-specific nomenclature (see for example
   drafts and RFCs in PKIX, many of which have ASN, BER, DER and other
   encodings and cryptographic language pertinent to and rooted in that
   domain.)

I doubt harm can come from it, but I don't see the Posix programming
model as being one of the background domains for understanding SIP.
Suppose, for example, that one's SIP stack was written in Java...

Dale


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