[DNSOP] Value of 4641bis

[Paul Hoffman <[e-mail]>]

At 6:07 PM -0800 1/22/10, David Conrad wrote:
>Operationally, people will do what they think is appropriate regardless of what is written in an RFC.  In some version of an ideal world, folks who care about "doing the right thing" could point to an RFC and ask vendors if they implement that RFC (presuming the RFC describes doing the right thing).  I don't fully get why it makes sense to dumb down RFCs in this context, but I'm sure it's because I'm missing something.

You are. People will tell operators "an RFC exists that covers your operation, so you must follow it". We see that all the time in the IETF in general, and I believe at least one person said it at the mic at the DNSOP WG in Dublin.

Thus, we really want our operational RFCs to reflect the widest range of best practices that are actually considered "best". If we get lazy and just list one scenario, we will be hurting the Internet by restricting some organizations to following one model when another might have made more sense for them.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium