IAB Response to Appeal from Tony Hain
On October 9, 2003, the IAB received an appeal against the IESG decision
regarding the IPv6 Working Group chairs' declaration of consensus on the
issue of site local addresses in the IPv6 address architecture (Attachment
A).
1. The Appeal Question
The IAB interpreted this appeal to be as follows:
The appeal is that the IESG, in upholding the IPv6 Working Group
chairs' and Internet Area ADs' decisions relating to the declaration
of consensus on the issue of deprecation of site local addresses in
the IPv6 address architecture, made an incorrect decision.
2. The Basis of the Appeal
The appeal is using the process described in Section 6.5.2 of the
"Internet Standards Process" (RFC 2026), namely:
Should the complainant not be satisfied with the outcome of the IESG
review, an appeal may be lodged to the IAB. The IAB shall then review
the situation and attempt to resolve it in a manner of its own
choosing and report to the IETF on the outcome of its review.
If circumstances warrant, the IAB may direct that an IESG decision be
annulled, and the situation shall then be as it was before the IESG
decision was taken. The IAB may also recommend an action to the IESG,
or make such other recommendations as it deems fit. The IAB may not,
however, pre-empt the role of the IESG by issuing a decision which
only the IESG is empowered to make.
The IAB decision is final with respect to the question of whether or
not the Internet standards procedures have been followed.
3. The Process used by the IAB to Review the Situation
The question raised by the appeal from the perspective of the IAB is
whether the Internet Standards Process been followed in the
determination of Working Group consensus and the subsequent appeal-
based reviews on the issue of deprecation of site local addresses in
the IPv6 address architecture.
The procedure used by the IAB in responding to this appeal has
included
- review of the documentation of the IETF's standards procedures and
a working group's declaration of consensus, as described in RFC
2026 and RFC 2418,
- review of the history of this appeal, and the process used and
evidence gathered by the IESG in responding to the appeal directed
to the IESG,
- review of the video recording of the meeting of the IPv6 working
group at the 56th IETF, where the original question concerning site
local addresses was put to the working group, and
- review of the IPv6 Working Group mailing list following
the 56th IETF to ascertain what followup actions were taken
within the Working Group leading to the declaration of Working
Group consensus on this topic, and
- review of email on the thread "Appeal to the IAB on the site-local
issue"
on the IETF mailing list.
4. IAB Considerations
4.1 Review of Internet Standards Procedures
RFC 2026 notes "the importance of establishing widespread community
consensus" within the operation of Internet Standards process. The
document also notes that disputes may be related to technical
disagreements or the process used by the Working Group to reach an
outcome.
i) RFC 2026, Section 6.5.1, Working Group Disputes
"An individual (whether a participant in the relevant Working Group
or not) may disagree with a Working Group recommendation based on
his or her belief that either (a) his or her own views have not
been adequately considered by the Working Group, or (b) the Working
Group has made an incorrect technical choice which places the
quality and/or integrity of the Working Group's product(s) in
significant jeopardy. The first issue is a difficulty with Working
Group process; the latter is an assertion of technical error.
These two types of disagreement are quite different, but both are
handled by the same process of review."
The procedure for Working Group meetings is detailed section 3 of the
"Working Group Guidelines" (RFC2418) document. Relevant excerpts from
this section of RFC 2418, "IETF Working Group Guidelines and
Procedures" are:
ii) RFC 2418, Section 3, Working Group Operation:
"The IETF has basic requirements for open and fair participation and
for thorough consideration of technical alternatives. Within those
constraints, working groups are autonomous and each determines most
of the details of its own operation with respect to session
participation, reaching closure, etc. The core rule for operation
is that acceptance or agreement is achieved via working group
"rough consensus".
iii) RFC 2418, Section 3.1, Session Planning:
"the [Working Group] Chair(s) MUST publish a draft agenda well in
advance of the actual session. The agenda should contain at least:
- The items for discussion;
- The estimated time necessary per item; and
- A clear indication of what documents the participants will need to
read before the session in order to be well prepared."
iv) RFC 2418, Section 3.2, Session venue:
"Decisions reached during a face-to-face meeting about topics or
issues which have not been discussed on the mailing list, or are
significantly different from previously arrived mailing list
consensus MUST be reviewed on the mailing list."
"While open discussion and contribution is essential to working
group success, the Chair is responsible for ensuring forward
progress."
v) RFC2418, Section 3.3, Session management:
"Consensus can be determined by a show of hands, humming, or any
other means on which the WG agrees (by rough consensus, of course).
Note that 51% of the working group does not qualify as "rough
consensus" and 99% is better than rough. It is up to the Chair to
determine if rough consensus has been reached."
"In the case where a consensus which has been reached during a face-
to-face meeting is being verified on a mailing list the people who
were in the meeting and expressed agreement must be taken into
account. If there were 100 people in a meeting and only a few
people on the mailing list disagree with the consensus of the
meeting then the consensus should be seen as being verified. Note
that enough time should be given to the verification process for
the mailing list readers to understand and consider any objections
that may be raised on the list. The normal two week last-call
period should be sufficient for this."
"The challenge to managing working group sessions is to balance the
need for open and fair consideration of the issues against the need
to make forward progress."
"It is occasionally appropriate to revisit a topic, to re-evaluate
alternatives or to improve the group's understanding of a relevant
decision. However, unnecessary repeated discussions on issues can
be avoided if the Chair makes sure that the main arguments in the
discussion (and the outcome) are summarized and archived after a
discussion has come to conclusion."
4.2 Review of the background of this appeal, and the process used and
evidence gathered by the IESG
References to the material reviewed are listed in Attachment B.
The April 10 appeal to the Area Directors and the April 31 appeal to
the IESG both claimed that the Working Group Chairs asked an ambiguous
question of yes/no for deprecation, both at the meeting and
subsequently on the list.
The IESG reply on September 30 was that the question asked by the
chairs at the meeting and on the mailing list was clear and precise.
The IESG reply on Sept. 30 also contends that the spectrum of choices,
included the limited use model, had been adequately presented at the SF
meeting.
The IAB noted that the IESG, in undertaking its review of the appeal
had reviewed the text of the Area Director's response to the appeal
to the Area Director, the Area Director's summary to the IESG of the
issue, the videotape of the IETF 56 Working Group meeting, and the
mailing list archives. It was noted that not all IESG members reviewed
every item in this collection of material. The IESG noted to the IAB
that it had unsuccessfully attempted to seek clarification of the
appeal from the appellant.
The IESG chose to treat the appeal as an appeal about the declaration
of consensus by the chairs at the IPv6 Working Group meeting during
IETF 56, and noted that the IESG regarded the video of this meeting as
the most central piece of evidence.
Since this was regarded as a process appeal, not an appeal on technical
substance, the events that transpired in the meeting, and their
relationship to the description about declaration of consensus within
the Internet Standards Process, were reported by the IESG as the
central points they considered in reaching their decision on the
appeal.
4.3 Review of Video Recording
A review of the video recording of the IETF56 IPv6 Working Group
meeting was undertaken by Scott Bradner and passed to the IAB on
October 13 (Attachment C). IAB members reviewed the video recording and
there is broad agreement that the report prepared by Scott Bradner is
an accurate summary of the proceedings.
The questions put to the Working Group at the meeting were:
(1) "how many people want to deprecate the use of IPv6 SL addresses?"
and
(2) "how many people do not want to deprecate the use of IPv6 SL
addresses?"
There was evidence of a consensus position within the meeting and the
chairs then informed the meeting that this would be then be taken to
the mailing list for verification.
4.4 Review of the IPv6 Working Group Mailing List
The Working Group Chairs took the declared consensus decision of the
Working Group meeting to the IPv6 working group mailing list. The IAB
has reviewed the mailing list traffic from the period between the
consensus call on April 1, and the declaration of consensus on April
10.
The question asked on the mailing list was:
"The question is:
Should we deprecate IPv6 site-local unicast addressing?
Valid responses are:
"YES -- Deprecate site-local unicast addressing".
"NO -- Do not deprecate site-local unicast addressing"."
The mailing list message also included the following notice:
"NOTE: DO NOT reply if you already expressed an opinion during
the IPv6 WG meeting in SF!"
People voting were required to vote either "Yes" or "No" unambiguously.
After reviewing the mails sent in response to this question, it is
noted that people clearly did so.
There was some mailing list traffic indicating that not all members of
the working group were entirely clear on the question and text
describing deprecation of site local addresses was requested. The view
was expressed that the question could imply that the working group
should stop working on any address technology that had site-local
scope, or that the question could imply that the working group should
remove the specification of the site-local prefix FEC0::/10, leaving
the potential for the working group to explore a similar approach at a
later time.
Other working group members indicated that did not see the question as
being unclear, and were comfortable that they were making an informed
decision when voicing their views on what they felt was a clearly put
question.
The declaration of consensus by the Working Group on the question was
posted to the mailing as follows:
"All told, there were over 200 responses to the consensus call on
IPv6 site-local addressing, approximately 3-to-1 in favor of
deprecating IPv6 site-local unicast addressing. The final count
(including the room and the mailing list) was: 155 YES, 56 NO (211
Total)."
4.5 Review of IETF email following the IAB Appeal
The IAB reviewed email on on the thread "Appeal to the IAB on the site-
local issue" on the IETF mailing list, following the lodging of an
appeal with the IAB. The email highlighted two main topics that are of
potential relevance:
- Does the decision to remove a technology from a proposed standard
require a stronger demonstration of consensus that the decision to
adopt a technology? Various views were expressed on this question
within the mail thread.
- Was the decision regarding site local addresses a decision related
to the definition of the address prefix FEC0::/10, or was it a
decision to remove site-scoped local addresses from the IPv6 address
architecture altogether?
4.6 Further Remarks
The appeal notes that:
"Contrary to their claim, the full spectrum of choices was not
presented at the SF meeting."
The appeals process within the IETF is intended to ensure that
differences of perspective in the manner of the conduct of the Internet
Standards Process are handled at through a number of levels of
escalation. It is assumed that when an appeal is passed to the IAB the
matter under review is one that has some gravity and substance and is
entirely germane to the proper operation of the Internet Standards
Process. Appeals can be seen to serve a role as one means of feedback
on the quality of the IETF's work in terms of both our ability to
adhere to our adopted process and the quality of the process itself.
These remarks are addressed to this broader perspective of the role of
appeals.
The technical topic upon which this appeal is based has been a topic
that has engaged the IPv6 Working Group's attention for a number of
years, and behind it lie a number of considerations relating to the
utility and role of scoped address prefixes within the protocol's address
architecture, and the associated issues of routing architectures and
deployment considerations.
The original approach of the definition of a common site local prefix
within the IPv6 address architecture, namely FEC0::/10, introduced the
potential issue of addressing clashes in the deployment environment.
Given the highly variable definitions of a "site" in the context of
deployment environments, and the consequences of leakage of these site-
local addresses beyond its intended scope of use, there was a body of
opinion that saw this as a potential weak point in the overall protocol
architecture.
Equally it is apparent that there is a body of opinion that recognizes
that there are perceived to be considerable advantages in a structured
approach to scoped architectures where local-use utilities could be
appropriately supported using local scoped addresses. In this fashion
it appeared to be the intention that local use contexts could be
supported using automated forms of local use address assignments in a
so-called 'plug- and-play' architecture.
It has been observed that the IPv6 working group has been grappling
with these two perspectives for some time, and progress with respect to
the standard forms of use of site-local addresses was not apparent
within the IPv6 Working Group for some time due to failure to obtain a
clear consensus, albeit rough consensus, over how to balance these two
perspectives and complete this part of its chartered activity.
It is noted that the Chairs have been diligent in attempting to assist
the working group to come to a consensus position on this topic, and
the IETF 56 meeting was intended to proceed further on the positions
that the Working Group had shown some level of preference at the IETF
55 meeting. The Chairs noted the emerging consensus position in the
IETF 56 working group meeting, and elected to put the question to the
working group that reflected this position.
The appeal to the IAB notes that within this course of events, there
was no documentation at the IETF 56 meeting of the option of
complete removal of the site-local prefix from the address
architecture, nor was there a requirements draft for locally-scoped
addresses, nor were there drafts that considered the implications of
the elimination of this prefix, or its retention within the address
architecture. As noted in the comments received by the IAB, and noted
in a review of the mailing list archives, this did lead to the comment
being made that the question was not sufficiently clear to all working
group members.
This consideration highlights the question received by the IAB
regarding the possible need for a stronger demonstration of consensus
for a decision to deprecate a technology from a proposed standard than
that required to adopt a technology. A possible rephrasing of this
question is to what degree should the working group carefully consider
the implications of deprecation in the form of preparation of working
group drafts that attempt to clearly define the intended action and
explore the consequences and potential alternative approaches prior to
making a consensus decision. This consideration would need to be
balanced against the need to ensure that IETF Working Groups can
operate effectively and efficiently, and that each Working Group
consensus decision does not get unduly enmeshed in an increasing level
of process overheads that may ultimately cause a Working Group to cease
to make any progress at all.
However, with regards to the protocol for IETF appeals, the appeal to
the IAB is an appeal of the IESG's ruling on the prior appeal to the
IESG. Broadening the terms of the appeal at this point in time is not
within the intended scope of the appeals process. For this reason the
IAB feels that above question is not properly within the scope of the
appeal of the IESG decision. If the IETF is of the view that this
question is of sufficient validity to warrant further study, then it is
appropriate that it should be considered within the existing process of
chartering a IETF working group activity relating to a review of the
Working Group Procedures and the Internet Standards Process, rather
than as part of any formal outcome of this appeal to the IAB.
The appeal raises the question:
"was this a vote about removing ambiguity from the site-local
prefix, or removing limited routing scope from the architecture?"
The appeal cites as evidence:
"Which returns us to the ambiguity of the original question, was
this a vote about removing ambiguity from the site-local prefix, or
removing limited routing scope from the architecture? People
expressed opinions about each of those as the basis of their yes
vote"
The questions posed to the working group by the chairs at the IETF 56
meeting were:
"how many people want to deprecate the use of IPv6 Site Local
addresses?"
and
"how many people do not want to deprecate the use of IPv6 Site Local
addresses?"
The question mailed to the ipv6 working group mailer was:
"Should we deprecate IPv6 site-local unicast addressing?"
It is observed that while a Working Group makes progress through rough
consensus, this consensus refers to working group consensus questions,
as distinct to a formation of a consensus among working group members
as the basis for their reasons to support a particular response to the
consensus question.
In terms of the question of the ambiguity of the question, this can be
posed as whether the term "deprecate IPv6 Site Local Addresses" is
inherently ambiguous to a IPv6 working group member.
It is noted that in the IPv6 address architecture the concept of a
"Site-Local Address" is defined as a set of constraints on those
addresses that use the prefix FEC0:/10. Within the mail archives of the
working group, the Working Group's use of the term "IPv6 site-local
address" has been consistently used to mean the FEC0::/10 prefix
together with the described set of constraints associated with this
prefix in the address architecture specification.
In this light is it reasonable to conclude that "deprecate IPv6 Site
Local Addresses" refers to the deprecation of the part of the IPv6
address architecture specification that describes the FEC0::/10 prefix
and its associated constraints. In the view of the IAB, we believe that
terminology used in the question was consistent with the working
group's normal usage of this terminology.
5. IAB Consideration of the Appeal
The IAB finds that:
- While this was a topic with a considerable history of consideration
within the Working Group's activities, the Working Group adopted a
direction within its IETF 56 meeting that wasn't well signaled in
advance in the meeting's agenda material, in the documents prepared
for consideration on the topic and in the conduct of this part of
the meeting. However, the Chairs of the Working Group were acting
within the parameters of conduct of Working Groups in calling the
question at the meeting in response to evidence of a possible
consensus on the question. The subsequent validation of this
consensus decision on the WG mailing list was a necessary and
useful adjunct to the WG meeting. The meeting poll was not a
decision taken in isolation or taken without subsequent
consideration.
- This decision was reflective of the consensus position of the
Working Group and was not an instance of the use of incorrect or
improper process. The Working Group Chairs declaration of Working
Group rough consensus on the question was made in accordance with
IETF process.
- There is no current documentation that requires any additional or
altered procedure to that of rough consensus when deprecating a
technology from an Internet standard, as compared to the adoption
of a technology.
- The IESG undertook a diligent investigation into the declaration of
consensus by the Working Group chairs, and had gathered all the
relevant inputs. The IAB in their review found that there is
nothing obvious that was omitted in the IESG investigation and the
IESG interpretation of the appeal as a process appeal is consistent
with the data the IESG gathered.
- that the IESG's decision not to uphold the appeal was consistent
with available evidence, and consistent with the IETF documented
processes for working group conduct and consistent with the
Internet Standards Process.
The IAB finds that the IESG decision, namely to uphold the IPv6 Working
Group chairs' and Internet Area ADs' decisions relating to the
declaration of consensus on the issue of deprecation of site local
addresses in the IPv6 address architecture, was consistent with the
available evidence and consistent with documented IETF process.
Accordingly, the IAB upholds the IESG decision in this matter.
Attachment A
------------
Text of the Appeal to the IAB
From: "Tony Hain" <alh-ietf@tndh.net>
To: "IAB" <iab@iab.org>
Cc: "The IESG" <iesg@ietf.org>, <ipv6@ietf.org>, "IETF" <ietf@ietf.org>
Subject: Appeal to the IAB on the site-local issue
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 16:59:38 -0700
I am saddened that it has come to this, but the IESG action has simply
prolonged the process. The only clarity in their '...somewhere to the
left...' justification is their willingness to let personal technical
biases blind them to the process failure. As such, please consider this
note to be an appeal to the IAB against the IESG decision to reject my
appeal.
Contrary to their claim, the full spectrum of choices was not presented
at the SF meeting. Then, if it weren't for the seriousness of the issue,
their inability to do a quick check of the Atlanta minutes (which shows
that 125 attendees were against complete removal, not the limited model)
would be humorous. In response to the overwhelming rejection of her
preferred path, in Atlanta the chair declared 'The wg has agreed we
don't want to remove them completely ...' so there was no documentation
developed discussing the impacts of complete removal. Therefore there
could be no substantive presentation of that position. As noted in my
original 4/10/2003 appeal to the chairs, the mail list claims that the
RFC 3513 Site-Local addresses 'have issues that outweigh the benefits',
or 'does not meet the requirements' are invalid because there was no
document listing the requirements, therefore no way to conduct an
evaluation which would justify those positions.
This lack of documentation became acute when the participants from the
applications area were invited to join in the discussion. While I
acknowledge that cross area participation helps refine the
specifications (and had personally been lobbying the Apps Area to
participate), that refinement only happens through extended discussion
and informed debate. An hour and twenty minutes of inciting the mob does
not constitute informed discussion. In fact 10 minutes before the
question, Dave Thaler pointed out there was no draft about elimination,
but that detail was ignored by the chair. Shortly after that, Brian
Carpenter pointed out that he couldn't vote for keeping SL unless he
knew the details of that outcome, to which the chair eventually
countered we don't have any details about what it means to remove them
either and 'we may have to wave our hands around a little bit'. The
chair chose to conduct the vote with no clear outcome for either
position, leaving the result that the chair could later tell the working
group what it had decided.
The further comment by the IESG that the action has resulted in working
group activity to address the issues is equally flawed. There were
attempts to disambiguate the FEC0 space prior to the SF fiasco, but
those were consistently savaged by those who want nothing more than to
declare the routing space to be globally flat by IETF fiat. Those same
people are working to prevent a different form of local prefix from
being defined, and now are feeling emboldened as it appears that this
current work is an addition to the architecture rather than a
refinement. Which returns us to the ambiguity of the original question,
was this a vote about removing ambiguity from the site-local prefix, or
removing limited routing scope from the architecture? People expressed
opinions about each of those as the basis of their yes vote, but the
scope of routing is an operational decision of network managers,
therefore not something the IETF gets to decide. Since the votes were
mixed as a common Yes, the vote must be invalidated.
At every step, this exercise has exposed failures in how the IETF
conducts its business. It is now up to the IAB to recommend that the
IESG go back, *seriously* set aside their technical biases, and
reconsider the process breakdowns. Anything less and we set the
precedent that it really doesn't matter how badly a chair abuses the
process as long as the IESG agrees with the outcome.
Tony
FYI: video of the SF session:
ftp://limestone.uoregon.edu/pub/videolab/video/ietf56/ietf56
> The IESG has reviewed the appeal by Tony Hain of the IPv6 Working Group
> chairs' declaration of consensus on the issue of site local addresses in
> the IPv6 address architecture.
>
> Tony's appeal requests that the declaration of consensus be
> overturned due
> to the ambiguity of the question asked.
>
> As is to be expected of a technical discussion where there are many
> opinions, the discussion of the site-local issue at the San
> Francisco IETF
> meeting went all over the map, with many unanswered questions.
> However, the question asked by the chairs, with clarification from
> the AD, was clear. "Does the group want to go away from site-local
> addressing, deprecate it, work out how to get it out, [or] does
> the group want to keep it and figure out what the right usage model
> is for it?" The clarifying statement was "Deprecate [...] means
> somewhere to the left of the 'limited use' model?" The spectrum
> of choices, including the 'limited use' model, had been presented
> during that same meeting. Although the group had decided to
> rule out the 'limited use' model (and presumably anything to the
> left of it as well) in Atlanta, nothing precludes new information
> from prompting a review of old decisions.
>
> The question posed on the list was more concise, simply "Should we
> deprecate IPv6 site-local unicast addressing?" This question is
> not ambiguous.
>
> The deprecation of site-local addresses in their current form has
> served a useful role in forcing the working group to recognize the
> problems that the original definition had and work to address them.
> The IESG finds nothing unusual about how the question was asked or
> how the working group has proceeded.
>
> There is strong consensus in the IESG that deprecation is the
> correct technical decision, but we have done our best to separate
> our technical preferences from the process issue in considering
> this appeal.
>
> In summary, the IESG upholds the chairs' and INT ADs' decisions.
>
> The IESG
>
Attachment B
------------
References to documentation and related material reviewed by the IAB
November 2003, Atlanta IETF:
Brian Haberman, "Routing and Forwarding of Site Local Addresses", 55th IETF.
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/02nov/slides/ipv6-5.pdf
Rob Austein, Connected Site-Local Considered Harmful, 55th IETF.
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/02nov/slides/ipv6-6.pdf
Minutes from the IPv6 Working Group at the Atlanta IETF:
http://playground.sun.com/pub/ipng/html/minutes/ipv6-minutes-nov2002.txt
March 2003, M. Wasserman, The Impact of Site-Local Addressing in
Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6).
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-wasserman-ipv6-sl-impact-02.txt
March 2003, San Francisco IETF meeting:
Bob Hinden and Margaret Wasserman, IPv6 Site-Local Discussion, 56th IETF
http://www.ietf.cnri.reston.va.us/proceedings/03mar/slides/ipv6-3/index.html
Page 3 lists the range of use cases: No site-local; limited;
exclusive; moderate; full-usage.
Minutes: http://www.psg.com/~mrw/ipv6-wg-minutes-mar2003.txt
April 1, Hinden and Wasserman, Consensus Call.
ftp://playground.sun.com/pub/ipng/mail-archive/,
ipng.200304, Message-Id:
<5.1.0.14.2.20030401143711.04a0f848@mail.windriver.com>
* "The question is: Should we deprecate IPv6 site-local unicast addressing?"
April 9, Hinden and Wasserman, Declaration on Consensus.
ftp://playground.sun.com/pub/ipng/mail-archive/,
ipng.200304, Message-Id:
<4.3.2.7.2.20030409150734.02f0ad58@mailhost.iprg.nokia.com>
* This is the IPv6 Working Group chairs' declaration of consensus on
the issue of site local addresses in the IPv6 address architecture.
* "there were over 200 responses to the consensus call on IPv6
site-local addressing, approximately 3-to-1 in favor of deprecating IPv6
site-local unicast addressing."
* "The IPv6 WG will work to accomplish the following things in parallel:"
April 10, appeal to the ADs:
ftp://playground.sun.com/pub/ipng/mail-archive/,
ipng.200304, Message-Id: <0f4201c2fef9$ef22eaf0$ee1a4104@eagleswings>
* "the chairs decided to call an ambiguous question of yes/no for
deprecation"
* "the call ended up combining yes opinions for removing ambiguity
with yes opinions for removing local scope addresses from the
architecture."
July 31, appeal to the IESG:
http://www.ietf.org/IESG/APPEALS/tony-hain-appeal.txt
Appeal claims:
* The chair asked an ambiguous question.
* The question asked to the list was no clearer.
August 26: draft-ietf-ipv6-deprecate-site-local-00.txt,
by Huitema and Carpenter. Now draft-ietf-ipv6-deprecate-site-local-01.txt
Sept. 16 email from Hinden and Haberman to ipv6@ietf.org on
"Results of Poll"
Sept. 30, IESG reply to the appeal:
http://www.ietf.cnri.reston.va.us/IESG/APPEALS/iesg_tony_hain.txt
In the IESG reply to the appeal, the IESG found that:
* The question asked by the chair, with clarification from the AD, was
clear;
* The question posed on the mailing list was clear and concise.
* The spectrum of choices, included the limited use model, had been
presented at
the meeting.
* Although the group had decided to rule out the limited use model in July,
"nothing precludes new information from prompting a review of old
decisions".
October 9, Hain, appeal to the IAB.
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/working-groups/ipv6/current/msg00239.html
Appeal claims:
* The full spectrum of choices was not presented at the SF meeting;
* The co-chairs didn't check the Atlanta minutes showing 125 attendees
against
complete removal;
* There was no documentation at the meeting of the complete removal option.
* Claims on the mailing list that site-local addresses don't meet the
requirements are invalid because there is no requirements document.
* The chair conducted the vote with no clear drafts about the elimination or
the keep-site-local options.
* It was not clear whether the vote was about removing ambiguity from the
site-local prefix, or about removing limited routing scope from the
architecture. "Since the votes were mixed as a common Yes, the
vote must be invalidated."
Email archives: ftp://playground.sun.com/pub/ipng, then
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/working-groups/ipv6/current/maillist.html
Attachment C
-------------
Review of recording of the IPv6 Working Group Session
Excerpts from mail from Scott Bradner to the IAB describing a review
of a video recording of the IPv6 Working Group meeting.
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 12:28:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: Scott Bradner <sob@harvard.edu>
To: iab@ietf.org
Subject: Re: Appeal to the IAB on the site-local issue
Cc: iesg@ietf.org, ietf@ietf.org
ftp://limestone.uoregon.edu/pub/videolab/video/ietf56/ietf56%20-%2003202003%20-%20INT%20ipv6.rm
The SL discussion starts at 1:02 into the session.
The chairs first presented a set of slides talking about various SL
related options. The presentation was interrupted with questions from
the floor quite a few times during the discussion of the "exclusive"
model (wherein a v6 node would be a SL node of a global addressing node)
- it was clear to me that there was quite a bit of confusion about this
model. There were few interruptions during the discussions about the
other models.
The chairs opened the floor for general discussion at 1:39 into the
session. The discussion was careful and extensive. After a while it
became clear, as noted by Thomas [Narten], that more people were arguing
for eliminating SL than had been the case in the past and few people
were arguing for SL addressing. Those that were arguing in favor of SL
mostly said that SL and v6 NATs were going to happen anyway but no one
seemed all that concerned that the IETF define such addresses (e.g. Deno
pointed out that people would just pick their own if the IETF did not.)
At 2:07 into the session the chairs conferred and said that they would
ask a simple yes or no question (in reality they asked two questions)
about deprecating IPv6 SL addresses. (Not eliminate them in that the
sense that the prefix would not be reassigned for other uses.) Margaret
noted that the simple questions covered a lot of details that were not
called out.
After 10 minutes of discussion to clarify the intent of the questions
Margaret asked for a show of hands for:
1/ how many people want to deprecate the use of IPv6 SL addresses?
2/ how many people do not want to deprecate the use of IPv6 SL
addresses?
She asked the first question twice so they could get a count of hands
the second time. The result was 102 hands in favor of deprecating and
20 opposed. The chairs declared that there was rough consensus in the
session to deprecate the use of IPv6 SL addressing but that this
consensus would now be taken to the list to verify.
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 11:17:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Scott Bradner <sob@harvard.edu>
To: iab@ietf.org
Subject: RE: Appeal to the IAB on the site-local issue
Cc: iesg@ietf.org, ietf@ietf.org
Yesterday I posted a message that said that I agreed with the IPv6
working group chairs that rough consensus was reached to deprecate IPv6
site local addresses. That said, I do have an issue on the discussion
that led up to that consensus decision. I do not think there was much
of an actual discussion on the topic.
The working group chair's presentation on the site local options listed
five options for the working group moving forward in regards to the site
local question. These options ranged from eliminating site local
addresses to fully embracing the concept and working out all the details
of how to use them. But they only discussed the middle three options.
They reported that the consensus in the Atlanta meeting was to not
support outright elimination or full embrace so those options were not
included in the chair's presentation of the advantages and disadvantages
of the various options.
The discussion during the chair's presentation basically did not touch
on the pros and cons of having site local addresses per se - a few 'they
should just go away' statements were made but no exploration of the
issues.
The open discussion after the presentation also did not explore the
issues but there were a greater number of people who felt that SL
addresses should be eliminated from IPv6.
As I mentioned in yesterday's note - Thomas and others noticed the
sentiment against SL and the chairs wound up asking the question they
did (about deprecating SL) as a result.
