On 7/2/24 07:24, Jay Daley wrote:
If the community wants to develop guidance on the use of IPv6 for IETF services then that would be helpful. More generally, it would be so much better all round, if the implicit expectations that people have about IETF services, were properly surfaced, discussed, agreed and recorded. If that were done, then we would be very happy to include those in any RFP or service assessment.
For any service that is required to be used, at least on some occasions, for effective participation in IETF, I'd say that effective participation must be open to anyone with (IPv4 and/or IPv6) Internet access, who hasn't been administratively prohibited from using such services via established processes.
Specifically for email, a participant on a network with no native
IPv4 access should still be able to participate effectively in
IETF. While it's true that most native IPv6 ISPs probably
support some kind of NAT for outgoing traffic, it doesn't follow
that they all provide IPv4-accessible mail exchangers for inbound
traffic. It also doesn't follow that traffic via a
carrier-provided NAT (thus sharing IPv4 addresses among a wide
variety of customers) wouldn't be penalized by reputation
servers.
Even if it could be established that all such networks provided
IPv4-accessible mail exchangers for inbound traffic to their
networks, I doubt we could reliably establish that this would
remain true for the foreseeable future.
As I alluded in a recent message, I fully expect, based on
experience with other network technology transitions, that soon
after IPv6 becomes ubiquitous there will be a sudden and dramatic
reduction in the use of IPv4 service. If IETF is going to avoid
supporting IPv6 email service for now, it's likely that at some
point in the future it will need to be able to change that
overnight and with little or no advance notice.
But in summary: (a) everyone should be able to participate, and
(b) delivery needs to be reliable [*]. As long as those
conditions are met now and in the future, I don't care how the
bits get there.
Or to state it differently, the reason I care about how the bits
get there is due to sincere doubts, based on long experience with
email, that an IPv4-only approach can meet criteria (a) and (b)
now and for the likely duration of the new/current arrangement.
Keith
[*] which at present, it isn't for me, though I don't think
that's an IPv4/IPv6 problem.
