How many pages does it take to make an LDAP spec?

In order to get a handle on how big “big” is, I thought it could be good to figure out how many pages were involved in the LDAP specs.

Of course, my memory is that there were an aweful lot. In fact, I don't think you could really do an LDAP implmentation without reading the X.500 spec first – and this means reading the X.200 series and probably getting your head around X.400. But let's take things at face value and assume you could ignore those documents and just use the documents that were filed as RFCs.

Given the fact that I'm opinionated, I thought it would be better to use someone else's list of the standards. A quick google and I came across an independently compiled list of LDAP documents. The site is run by Jeff Hodges – who seems to be a protocol architect himself at a very eminent software company.

And what do we find? Here is the resulting table of specs and pages…

1255 I T. Directory Forum, “A Naming Scheme for c=US”, 09/05/1991. 25
1276 PS S. Kille, “Replication and Distributed Operations extensions to 17
1275 I S. Kille, “Replication Requirements to provide an Internet 17
1274 PS P. Barker, S. Kille, “The COSINE and Internet X.500 Schema”, 60
1275 I S. Kille, “Replication Requirements to provide an Internet 17
1276 PS S. Kille, “Replication and Distributed Operations extensions to 17
1277 PS S. Kille, “Encoding Network Addresses to Support Operation Ov 10
1278 I S. Hardcastle-Kille, “A String Encoding of Presentation Address”, 5
1279 S. Kille, “X.500 and Domains”, 11/27/1991. (Pages=13) 13
1295 I NADF, “User Bill of Rights for entries and listings in the Public 2
1308 I J. Reynolds, C. Weider, “Executive Introduction to Directory 4
1309 I S. Heker, J. Reynolds, C. Weider, “Technical Overview of Director 16
1330 I ESCC X.500/X.400 Task Force, “Recommendations for the Phase 87
1355 I J. Curran, A. Marine, “Privacy and Accuracy Issues in Network 4
1384 I P. Barker, S. Hardcastle-Kille, “Naming Guidelines for Directory 12
1430 I S. Kille, E. Huizer, V. Cerf, R. Hobby, S. Kent, “A Strategic Plan 20
rfc1431.txt—DUA Metrics (OSI-DS 33 (v2)) 19
1487 PS W. Yeong, T. Howes, S. Hardcastle-Kille, “X.500 Lightweight 21
rfc1488.txt—The X.500 String Representation of Standard Attribute Syntax 11
rfc1558.txt—A String Representation of LDAP Search Filters. 3
rfc1588.txt—White Pages Meeting Report. J. Postel & C. Anderson. Febru 35
1617 I P. Barker, S. Kille, T. Lenggenhager, “Naming and Structuring 28
1684 I P. Jurg, “Introduction to White Pages services based on X.500”, 10
1727 I C. Weider, P. Deutsch, “A Vision of an Integrated Internet 11
1758 I T. American Directory Forum, “NADF Standing Documents: A Bri 4
1777 DS W. Yeong, T. Howes, S. Kille, “Lightweight Directory Access 22
1781 PS S. Kille, “Using the OSI Directory to Achieve User Friendly 12
1798 PS A. Young, “Connection-less Lightweight Directory Access Proto 9
1803 I R. Wright, A. Getchell, T. Howes, S. Sataluri, P. Yee, W. Yeong, 8
1804 E G. Mansfield, P. Rajeev, S. Raghavan, T. Howes, “Schema Publi 10
1823 T. Howes & M. Smith, “The LDAP Application Program Interface”, Au 22
Total 551

Published by

Kim Cameron

Work on identity.