Re: Use of "unassigned" in IANA registries

[Lars Eggert <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

On 2011-1-17, at 1:23, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
> If people think that IANA is a tool they can use to impose their own
> personal political agenda on the Internet, they are mistaken.

that isn't the point of this thread.

The point of IANA assignment is to avoid conflicting codepoint usage. Squatting on codepoints defeats this goal.

For example, see the TCP option number registry at http://www.iana.org/assignments/tcp-parameters/tcp-parameters.xml#tcp-parameters-1. The highest IANA-assigned option number is currently 29. IANA assigns in-order. I happen to know that option number 32 is being squatted on. If IANA assigns number 32 to some other option, conflicts *will* arise. (There are several TCP options being developed in the IETF at the moment, so this is not a constructed argument.)

I know of about 5 or so TCP option numbers that are being squatted on at the moment (there are likely more). I've been in discussion with the folks who are squatting, and in all cases the story was either "we were going to ask for assignment but it got forgotten" or "oh, you mean unassigned doesn't mean it's free for the taking?"

Using a term other than "unassigned" might prevent some instances of the latter.

Lars