Re: Last Call: <draft-ietf-spfbis-4408bis-19.txt> (Sender Policy Framework (SPF) for Authorizing Use of Domains in Email, Version 1) to Proposed Standard

[Scott Kitterman <[e-mail]>]

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