Bernard, > I also agree that the change is appropriate. Good. > However, I am also aware of > significant frustration being voiced with respect to the speed by which > the expert review process moved -- and this change could slow it > further. It's worth keeping in mind that the IETF has no power to prevent > people from using unallocated protocol numbers. > > For example, see: > http://kerneltrap.org/node/2873 > I would like to separate three things: 1) this change which is for IPv4 and IPv6 protocol numbers, 2) expert review process speed, and 3) the specific case that you pointed to in the above. For 1), I do not think we can have a blanket IANA rule for everything. What the numbers are for impacts what the policy should be. I believe what we are suggesting for the proto numbers is the right thing, given that we are dealing with this specific space. Since the new policy is IESG Approval or Standards Approval, the IESG can grant requests based on a judgment call. For what it is worth, if, e.g., some open source developers approached me for an allocation I would work to get it approved in a timely manner, assuming the request was reasonably sane. For 2), this is indeed a problem. The IESG and IANA have been in discussions on how to track these cases, what deadlines we should set for raising the issue to the IESG if the expert does not respond, etc. I think there's definitely room for improvement here. In addition, as has been discussed before on this list, we need to think about what policies make sense. A restrictive Standards Action/Expert Review/IESG Approval does not always make sense unless there are field size or interoperability issues. The rest should be as open as possible. In general, the IANA policies need monitoring and updates; WGs should look at their current policies and determine if they are correct in today's environment This is part of the reason why I said that the port case is being handled separately. I think people should be able to request ports much more easily than protocol numbers. For 3), I respectfully disagree with Ryan's statements on the web page. He said "... you pay for "experts" to review your protocol and if they agree that it requires the numbers you're asking for, you get it. If you look at the list of assigned protocol numbers, this method appears to be the favored one. Getting a number allocation has more to do with having money." This is obviously completely incorrect. All you have to do to get an expert looking at an allocation is ask. And experts who are unresponsive -- they appear to be capable of stalling requests even from the big business guys :-( Jari _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf