--On Friday, May 31, 2013 17:23 -0700 Randy Bush <randy@xxxxxxx> wrote: > < rant > > > the sad fact is that the ietf culture is often not very good at > listening to the (ops) customer. look at the cf we have made > out of ipv6. the end user, and the op, want the absolute > minimal change and cost, let me get an ipv6 allocation from > the integer rental monopoly, flip a switch or two, and get 96 > more bits no magic. 15 years later, dhcp is still a cf, i > have to run a second server (why the hell does isc not merge > them?), i can not use it for finding my gateway or vrrp exit, > ... at least we got rid of the tla/nla classful insanity. but > u/g? puhleeze. Randy, I suggest that characterizing that set of issues as IETF versus Ops is probably not completely right either. For example, with IPv6, the IETF has proposed multiple transition solutions with no roadmap as to which one to apply under what circumstances and growing evidence that some of those solutions are unworkable in practice and others are incompatible with what are claimed to be fundamental and important features of the Internet. It doesn't take a skilled operations person to understand that is a problem; someone with a pointy head and barely enough clue to figure out what a "bit" is much less how many of them are in various addresses can derive a "don't be the first person on the block" or "don't migrate if you can figure out an alternative" lesson from that. Similarly, various applications folks within the IETF have pointed out repeatedly that any approach that assigns multiple addresses, associated with different networks and different policies and properties, either requires the applications to understand those policies, properties, and associated routing (and blows up all of the historical application-layer APIs in the process) or requires request/response negotiation that TCP doesn't allow for (and blows up most of the historical application-layer APIs). One of the original promises about IPv6 was no need for changes to TCP and consequent transparency to most applications. Ha! I have never been convinced that "longer addresses and nothing else" was the only viable solution for IPng, but I don't think it requires an advanced degree in economics to understand that, if the incentives to do something don't exceed the costs and risks of doing it, one shouldn't expect a lot of rational folks to charge off and do it. A complex system with high deployment costs and risks and a dubious set of advantages is not a story that is going to sell itself. And, again, it doesn't require a sophisticated operator to figure that out. None of this takes away from your rant (or Warren's). But I suggest that, on several of the dimensions you identify, the operators are not being singled out for abusive treatment because we don't listen to each other or elementary decision-making or economic realities either... at least where broad issues, rather than fine-tuning of a spec are concerned. john