[pcap-ng-format] Procedure for registering new block type value and block-specific values such as options

[Michael Richardson]

Ah, an IANA Considerations discussion :-)

Guy Harris <guy at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
    > 1) The requestor sends a message to this list saying "I'm going to be
    > proposing a block called the "Writer's Block" for pcapng; could you
    > please reserve a block number for me?  I'll make a pull request once I
    > get a block number.", we update the "Standardized Block Type Codes"
    > table to mark it as reserved for their block and send a reply, and they
    > then make a pull request, with the new code in the ASCII-art diagram
    > for their block.  Once the discussion for the pull request reaches a
    > consensus on the block being sufficiently well-specified and the
    > specification being reasonable, the pull request is merged, and we then
    > update the "Standardized Block Type Codes" table.

I prefer this mechanism.

I don't mind if the initial "message" is in the form of a pull request to
allocate the block number along the lines of:

    > 4) The requestor picks a currently-unused value, where
    > "currently-unused" includes "not requested in any pull request,
    > either"; if it's currently requested in another pull request, we add a
    > comment saying "sorry, somebody already wants to use that, pick another
    > value" and it's not merged until they do.

in other words, I'm happy if the first pull request is along the lines of
adding:

0xABCD1234      someone at example.com 2018-11-20 proposed Writer's Block

and then a second one has all the details.

    > (Perhaps we have a timeout so that if nothing happens in, say, six
    > months, the reserved block type code is released.)

This is is a good idea.

    > For updates to block-specific values, such as option codes and, for the
    > proposed Decryption Secrets Block, the secrets type, do we need to have
    > that procedure to avoid collisions?

    > My inclination is currently to go with 5).

    > (And if we could make the pcapng spec *be* the wiki, with a way to
    > generate a single page or whatever from it, that might be even cooler.)

:-)

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