On Aug 19, 2013, at 5:41 PM, Andrew Sullivan <ajs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > I'm not going to copy the spfbis WG list on this, because this is part > of the IETF last call. No hat. > > On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 02:04:10PM -0700, Murray S. Kucherawy wrote: >> On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 1:59 PM, Dave Crocker <dhc@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >>> From earlier exchanges about this concern, the assertion that I recall is >>> that 7 years is not long enough, to determine whether a feature will be >>> adopted. > >> What is the premise for seven years being "not long enough"? And what does >> constitute "long enough"? And upon what is that last answer based? > > I have two observations about this. First, EDNS0, which is of > significantly greater benefit to DNS operators than the mere addition > of an RRTYPE, took well over 10 years to get widespread adoption. > Second, we all know where IPv6 adoption stands today, and that has > certainly been around longer than 7 years. So I think it _is_ fair to > say that adoption of features in core infrastructure takes a very long > time, and if one wants to add such features one has to be prepared to > wait. > > But, second, I think all of that is irrelevant anyway. The plain fact > is that, once 4408 offered more than one way to publish a record, the > easiest publication approach was going to prevail. That's the > approach that uses a TXT record. > For the record I think SPF RRtype retirement is not in the good-idea category, but nor is it in the bad-idea category, it falls in the we need-to-do-something-that-works. Most of the recent arguments against SPF type have come down to the following (as far as I can tell): a) I can not add SPF RRtype via my provisioning system into my DNS servers b) My firewall doesl not let SPF Records through c) My DNS library does not return SPF records through or does not understand it, thus the application can not receive it. d) Looking up SPF is a waste of time as they do not get through, thus we only look up TXT So what I have taken from this is that the DNS infrastructure is agnostic to RRtype=99 but the edges have problems. As to the arguments 7 years is not long enough to reach conclusion and force the changes through the infrastructure and to the edges. The "need" for SPF has been blunted by the "DUAL SPF/TXT" strategy and thus we are basically in the place where the path of lowest-resistence has taken us. What I want the IESG to add a note to the document is that says something like the following: "The retirement of SPF from specification is not to be taken that new RRtypes can not be used by applications, the retirement is consequence of the dual "quick-deploy" strategy. The IETF will continue to advocate application specific RRtypes applications/firewalls/libraries SHOULD support that approach." Olafur