IETF email and IPv6 and related issues

[Jay Daley <[e-mail]>]

(Sorry for this response taking so long - I was way last week)

From reading the various threads, there are four substantive points for me to address:

1.  Communications
I agree that our communication around the mail migration has not been good enough and I apologise for that.  We have put new processes in place to ensure that we are communicating with more details and in a more timely fashion, and so this will improve going forward.

2.  Consulting on specific changes
We have been engaged in a major infrastructure migration project for several months now, which follows a year and half of discussions to agree a new strategy for infrastructure management, all of which took place on [e-mail] and in the monthly tools calls. In any project of this scale and complexity, there’s a balance between getting on and delivering that strategy, and consulting on individual decisions as part of that.  We currently manage that balance through holding monthly tools calls with a detailed agenda and the LLC tools people and key contractors in attendance [1]. Unfortunately, we’ve had limited community participation in those meetings, those that have participated have been supportive and we have therefore been caught out here.   (That’s not to criticise those who have participated- their views have been very welcome).

As things stand, I don’t see a better way to manage that balance.  A pre-emptive issue-specific consultation mechanism would take too long and, given the likely spread of views, would not provide a clear path forwards.  To put it directly - if anyone wants to review/support/influence the migration project then they should either join those calls or read the agenda when posted and provide comment on the tools-discuss list.  

3.  IPv6 for mail
As others have explained, we have chosen to switch, at this stage, to a large commercial mail sender with extensive reputation management rather than continue to send directly and as a consequence that will be IPv4 only.  I don’t plan to reiterate the multiple trade-offs considered in that decision, but I do want to stress that this was not a simple decision.  I say "at this stage" because there are still discussions about whether or not this is the best long term strategy for mail delivery.

At a principled level, I agree that if the community says "we must have IPv6 for mail" then the LLC needs to deliver that, but at a practical level, given the cost and effort required, I would want that conveyed in a more formal way than a discussion on this list and us given a year plus to deliver it.  However, and this is major however, piecemeal decisions like that are only going to make things much harder and it would be much better to have a broader decision about IPv6 in IETF services (more on that below).  

For now at least then, we are going to continue with the plan to move to Amazon SES for mail sending.  Once that is bedded down, that will be reviewed, but that will be several months away and the outcome may be to stick with it, unless there has been a community decision that changes that.

4.  IPv6 for all services (or not)
If the community wants to develop guidance on the use of IPv6 for IETF services then that would be helpful.  More generally, it would be so much better all round, if the implicit expectations that people have about IETF services, were properly surfaced, discussed, agreed and recorded.  If that were done, then we would be very happy to include those in any RFP or service assessment.

Jay

[1]  https://notes.ietf.org/tools-team-20240611 for the most recent


-- 
Jay Daley
IETF Executive Director
[e-mail]