From: Noel Chiappa, Monday, July 02, 2007 6:08 AM > > > From: itojun@xxxxxxxxxx (Jun-ichiro itojun Hagino) > > > if NAT-PT is to be made historic due to the claims presented in > the > > draft, all of the NAT related documents have to be made historic > > ... > > and all of the NAT traversal documents .. has to be banned at > once. > > > itojun@fahrenheit 911 > > The irony of that email address, appended to that message, is pretty > good. > > Noel :-) Maybe someone should pause and consider why the IETF publishes specifications, or informational documents. Over the last 15 years, I have seen a drift of attitude, basically from engineering to a policy making. In the old engineering attitude, working groups were created because several like-minded engineers wanted to develop some function, or protocol. It was important for them to get together, so they could voluntarily agree on the details. If they did not, each would develop their own version, and there will be no interoperability. The result was documented in a set of RFC, so that whoever wanted to develop a compatible product could. IANA registries are used to ensure that when options arise, the options are numbered in an orderly manner. In the policy making attitude, working groups are created to control evolution of a particular function. The working group members are concerned that someone else might be implementing something harmful to the Internet. Their goal is not so much to develop products as to ensure that non-conforming products do not get developed. IANA registries are used to control extensibility of the resulting protocols, to make sure that "bad" options never get a number. In short, the IETF evolved from an informal gathering where engineers will agree on how to do things, to a reactive body that mostly aims at controlling evolution of the Internet. Is that really what we want? -- Christian Huitema _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf