On Wednesday, August 28, 2013 07:21:13 Dave Crocker wrote: > On 8/28/2013 5:24 AM, S Moonesamy wrote: > > It's difficult, some might say impossible, to get agreement on > > draft-ietf-spfbis-4408bis. I would like to ask each of you, and anyone > > else, to provide your opinion about the following: > > > RFC 5507 primarily raises three concerns about TXT records: > RFC 5507 is irrelevant to consideration of the SPFbis draft. > > Really. > > RFC 5507 concerns approaches to design. However the SPFbis draft is not > designing a new capability. It is documenting a mechanism that has > existed for quite a long time, is very widely deployed, and has become > an essential part of Internet Mail's operational infrastructure that > works to counter abuse. > > Internet Mail already relies on SPF and has for many years. > > To consider RFC 5507 with respect to SPFbis is to treat the current > draft as a matter of new work, which it isn't. > > No one is arguing that SPF's use of the TXT record is preferable. All > newer uses of the TXT record use a scoping mechanism (through an > underscore-based node name) to avoid all of the classic TXT record > ambiguity concerns. > > My professional assessment of SPF is that there are many ways it could > have been designed better. My other professional assessment is that the > design quality of SPF ceased to be a relevant consideration, as soon as > it gained widespread traction. > > Wide deployment equals very large-scale consensus and quite a lot of > running code. The IETF says it cares about those two attributes. > > If IETF technical work is to have any relation to the operational > Internet, it needs to treat solid, real-world deployment as having > higher priority than theoretical technical perfection. Yes. Please. Scott K