Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 23:21:35 +0200
From: Eliot Lear <lear@xxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID: <42C1BF5F.10902@xxxxxxxxx>
| Not publicly. Certainly there was a problem. Indeed someone (I forget
| who) had made a request for a /8, which forced the issue.
At the time 1597 was being prepared, I was certainly just a regular
IETF member (and not all that frequent an attendee of meetings), so if
I knew anything about it, it had to be public, in at least some parts of
the IETF. For what it is worth, which is almost zero now, at the time
I was one of those (like you) who was opposed to the thing.
| My concern is the ground in between, where some people derive some
| benefit from it to the detriment of others because of some interaction
| introduced on the device
Of course, the net as it exists now is a constant battle between those
who are getting better service, and those who are not. It occurs
in all kinds of ways, and certainly things change as new developments
occur which favour one group or another. As almost everyone is
constantly attempting to improve their own situation, and meet their own
needs (for obvious reasons, and I am not even claiming that any of this
is a bad thing) that's to be expected. Everyone simply has to cope.
| Is this architectural purity? Perhaps. It's really not what I would
| aim for. I think the standard should simply be "will the thing cause
| harm?" and the judges of that standard should be the IESG and not IANA.
My point is that it should be neither. The community (network operators,
users, developers) all between them end up deciding which parts of the
various standards that are published (by the IETF, and others) get used,
and which do not. We need no morality police.
But for all of that to work, the (comparatively few) places where sharing
is needed to keep things working, the sharing must be fair. That is,
there cannot be any of "this was not developed here, and we do not like it,
so you cannot play" type mentality.
The various paramater assignments must be open to all. All kinds of
things will be tried, by all kiinds of people, whether we like them or
not. About all we can do to retain sanity is to make sure that we
know what is happening, and can detect it cleanly. We certainly
have no means to stop it.
Do remember, that the IETF is not the owner or the boss of the internet.
All the IETF has any direct influence over is a set of standards
(protocols) that the Intenet (in its collective wisdom) can choose
to use, or not to use. They can, and do, also choose to use technology
from other sources.
kre
_______________________________________________
Ietf@xxxxxxxx
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf