At 13:52 -0400 6/1/11, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
We could remove the "Applicability Statement" in the title, if that would help. Ed?
I think the issue is where to put what conventional wisdom considers the current algorithms to use. No matter how much I think about it, I think putting this in a registry is a mistake.
The problem is that a registry is a current state of affairs. It is not versionable. I don't say my implementation is compliant with the IANA registry of 1999. If I did, there's no way to check that. However, I can say my implementation is compliant (as in built to the contents of) RFC 2065. 'Course, RFC 2065 is obsolete, but my code may not have been changed. If I re-implement to meet RFC 2535 and then later to RFC 4033-4035, you can verify this via the history of documents. The types in the IANA registry show the current definitions, but the RFCs keep the history.
We received feedback at a meeting (in Maastricht, I think, and from Steve Kent, I think) that the DNSEXT WG should pick some algorithms and make it clear that those are the ones everyone ought to be able to use, if they want to be interoperable with everyone else. We were also advised to make clear the one(s) we believe to be "up next", on the grounds that implementers and deployers can be ready.
Then just issue a document called "DNSEXT's Preferred Algorithms 2011" and make it an RFC. This way, in 10 years, we can sit back and laugh at what was fashionable back in the day.
So, the goal here is threefold: (1) to collect all those MUSTs and MUST NOTs into one RFC: anything not defined in that RFC as required is completely optional; (2) to provide a single place where implementers can find out where that advice is located; (3) to make sure that we don't somehow end up with conflicting advice.
That would be nice, I just think a registry is the wrong place to put that - because registries change and old (deployed) implementations don't.
In this way, the draft is using the registry exactly as it was intended: it is a control point that makes sure a given assignment happens in a co-ordinated way. In this case, the assignment is "DNS community current best advice about what will be maximally interoperable." It's not a blessing; it's just another entry that ensures co-ordination on the Internet in a way that ensures interoperability is maximized.
But the "current best advice" changes. And old versions of software don't. -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Edward Lewis NeuStar You can leave a voice message at +1-571-434-5468 Now, don't say I'm always complaining. Wait, that's a complaint, isn't it? _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf