RE: Protocol: Add, ModDN, and RDN attrs

["Howard Chu" <hyc@highlandsun.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ietf-ldapbis@OpenLDAP.org
> [mailto:owner-ietf-ldapbis@OpenLDAP.org]On Behalf Of Mark Smith

> Jim Sermersheim wrote:

> > You're right, the language in RFC 2251 is clear, but it is
> opposite of
> > that in X.511. Aside from possibly making some server
> implementations
> > overly restrictive, What justification is there to leave
> the language as
> > it is? I can't think of a reason as to why it would have been added
> > without an explanation as to why it is different from the
> instructions
> > in X.511. If we decide to leave the imperative for
> compatability with
> > older implementations, we need to explain why it is there.
>
> Fair enough.  I can only speculate on why the language was included.
> Possible reasons:
>
> 1) Accidental (someone wanted to be consistent with X.511 but got it
> wrong).  I think this is an unlikely reason.
>
> 2) Intentional.  Perhaps someone thought LDAP server implementations
> would be simpler if distinguished values were included.
>
> It seems likely that some server implementations rely on clients
> including distinguished values.  But I am not sure.  The Netscape
> implementation I used to work on was "enhanced" at some point in the
> somewhat distant past to be liberal in what it accepts and handle
> clients that include or omit such values.

It would certainly be more user-friendly to do it this way. The current 2251
language goes against the "be liberal in what you accept" philosophy; if
there's no good justification for it then it appears to be a bug.

  -- Howard Chu
  Chief Architect, Symas Corp.       Director, Highland Sun
  http://www.symas.com               http://highlandsun.com/hyc
  Symas: Premier OpenSource Development and Support