--On 20. september 2004 14:03 +0200 Brian E Carpenter <brc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I think the real point is that it's quite unrealistic at this stage in the history of NAT to imagine that we can make the mess (which was inevitable anyway) any better by codifying the least-bad form of NAT behaviour. The NAT codes are shipped, burnt into lots of devices, and the IETF can't do much about it. So I think this would be wasted effort.
My take (which is obviously biased) is that the number of NAT devices 2 years from now is likely to be significantly larger than the number of NAT devices currently deployed.
And - here I am making a real leap of faith - if the IETF recommendations for NAT devices make manufacturers who listen to them create NAT devices that make their customers more happy, then many of these new NAT devices may be conformant to IETF recommendations.
If we're really, really lucky - and reasonably fast - we could make the experience of people using the Internet better - "make the Internet work better" for those users.
And that's what the IETF is supposed to do, isn't it?
(Note - I sympathize with Pekka's touching faith in Teredo as the Big Solution.... I hope he's right. So the NAT recommendations may in that case boil down to a single sentence:
"Don't break Teredo"
If that's the case.... it's worth saying.)
Harald
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