Re: [Gen-art] Gen-ART Last Call review of draft-ietf-bess-ir-04

[Paul Kyzivat <[e-mail]>]

On 8/15/16 2:50 PM, Eric C Rosen wrote:
> Thanks for your review.
>
> On 8/9/2016 4:41 PM, Paul Kyzivat wrote:
>> it will be unlikely that a new implementer, schooled in the subject
>> matter, will be able to create a correct implementation.
>
> The material in this draft describes running code.   There are at least
> two independent, interoperable implementations.  The draft was written
> after the implementations were done, and is a faithful description of
> what was implemented.
>
> While doing the implementation, it was discovered that the Ingress
> Replication feature of RFCs 6513/6514 was under-specified in some
> respects and unclearly specified in others.  The purpose of this draft
> is to document the procedures that had to be figured out during this
> implementation effort.
>
> I can assure you that this draft makes it a lot easier to implement this
> feature!

Ah. Well, since it was written after the fact, by people who had 
implemented without it, that doesn't constitute an existence proof that 
a new independent implementation will be interoperable with the others. 
(Before tweaking based on interop testing.)

But I do agree that the situation should be better *with* this document 
than without it.

> Of course, Ingress Replication is just part of a larger and more complex
> system.  The draft shows how IR fits into the larger system, but the
> overall system remains complex.

Yeah. I am really glad that *you* are implementing it, and not *me*. :-)

I now have a greater appreciation for why internet-wide multicast is 
generally thought not to work!

	Thanks,
	Paul