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Re: Support for "codice fiscale" syntax

Kurt Zeilenga wrote: 

On Oct 28, 2008, at 10:50 AM, Pierangelo Masarati wrote:

I've developed a module that implements support for the syntax of
"codice fiscale", the personal identification code used by the Italian
government to uniquely identify citizen.  I think it might be of general
use, although possibly limited to Italian users, so I'd like to give it
a somewhat official and unbiased OID, rather than one under my arc or
SysNet's.

I'm not sure what you mean by "official and unbiased OIDs".

I meant something like "neutral", and strictly for a "work in progress" phase, until I find whether there's any official agency willing to support this initiative somehow (I'm not optimistic, as you can infer).

OIDs are either properly delegated or not. Two properly OIDs are equally official and have no bias. They are just a sequence of numbers after all.

Now different delegators have different biases, but these biases have no impact on the technical aspects of the protocols.

Would it qualify as general enough for OpenLDAP's OID arc, at
least while experimental?

To qualify, the question is not whether the use is "general enough". 

Exactly.

Simply put, the OpenLDAP OID arc is for the Project's use. It's not for the use by other enterprises.
>
It primarily used for early implementations of LDAP extensions in OpenLDAP Software, such as when the standards development organization producing the extension specification has not yet assigned OIDs for extension elements. It's also used for extensions specific to OpenLDAP Software and/or the OpenLDAP Project.

Generally speaking, OpenLDAP OID should only be used to identify elements used in OpenLDAP Software and otherwise don't otherwise have an OID.

This use is not for my enterprise, otherwise I would have had no doubt, and used SysNet's arc. It's a voluntary contribution to OpenLDAP, in order to provide support for this feature and hopefully encourage other implementors (and users) towards supporting (and using) this instead of hijacking employeeNumber, description, myCodiceFiscale and so on. So I infer the answer is: yes, an OID from OpenLDAP's experimental OID arc would be appropriate for the "work in progress" phase (beware that it could last forever :).

I believe the need for a dedicated syntax (as
opposed to IA5string, printableString or so) is that its definition,
although flawed, needs to conform to quite a few restrictions, and a
syntax that allows to detect trivial errors and single out impossible
values would be definitely helpful.  I need the OID in order to submit
code along with an ITS for contrib.  An OID arc would be best, because
the kit consists in:

- a syntax
- an equality matching rule (cfMatch)
- an attribute spec (cf)
- an auxiliary objectClass spec (cfObject)


Speaking generally (for all contributions):

If you use a dummy OID (e.g., 1.1) in your contribution (and document this), then the project should, if your contribution is accepted, assign an appropriate OID upon integration.

If you want to make use of your contribution before integration, I would suggest you assign an OID from your arc and submit using that.

Speaking with regard to this particular situation, my primary concern would be whether your or our assignment would conflict with that of the organization standardizing "codice fiscale". This might be a case where we want to consider our code an "early implementation" of a yet published standard (where use of a .666 OID is appropriate). I'm not familiar enough with "codice fiscale" to know whether its developers would ever assign an OID.

Codice Fiscale is based on a law of 1976; the fact there is no standard attribute for it, nor any vendor to my knowledge provides an attribute for it seems indicative of the importance it has in the (Italian) LDAP users community. The typical approach seems to consist in hijacking another attribute generic enough to hold it, with detrimental consequences on interoperability.

If it wasn't for that, I would say: just submit the contribution to see if there were any objections to its integration and, if none, integrate it using either your OID (if you already assigned one) or an OpenLDAP OID (if not). 

I'll follow this route.  Thanks, p.


Ing. Pierangelo Masarati
OpenLDAP Core Team

SysNet s.r.l.
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