Re: [Int-area] [arch-d] Is IPv6 End-to-End? R.I.P. Architecture? (Fwd: Errata #5933 for RFC8200)

[Fernando Gont <[e-mail]>]

On 28/2/20 01:15, Bernard Aboba wrote:
> Fernando said:
> 
> "If that were the case, anything and everything would be published as an 
> RFC."
> 
> [BA] So you're saying that this is not the case already?

Yes, that's not the case, particularly for people that participate 
independently.




> "Among other things, the specs we publish are supposed to be subject to a
> decent level of review, and are also supposed to be coherent groups of
> specifications."
> 
> [BA] Please feel free to design a process that can accomplish this, 
> given the level of participation we have within the IETF.
> The IESG members have a near-impossible job, so they have to rely on 
> Directorates, who in turn do the best they can. But the IETF process 
> exercises much of its restraint at the beginning of the process 
> (*before* a WG is chartered).  Once Chartered, it is rare for a WG 
> document with sufficient energy behind it to fail to get through the 
> process.  The review process does not guarantee that drafts conform to 
> BCPs or IAB statements, let alone consistency with other RFCs.

There's a big difference between a document being published, and the 
authors of a document crafting whatever they please into that document, 
and having the IETF rubberstamp it.




> "If you have one spec that says one thing, and then you have another, 
> from the same Std Org, that says the opposite, without "obsoleting" the 
> former, then you end up with something that won't have a single bit of 
> coherence, virtually impossible to digest by anybody else other by than 
> a limited group of people that just happens to know how everyone
> violates each others specs."
> 
> [BA] This has been the case from the earliest days.  For example, as 
> documented in RFC 4840, back in the early 1980s, there were 3+ 
> approaches to the encapsulation of IP on Ethernet/IEEE 802.1.  Yet the 
> marketplace sorted things out then, as they did later when some of the 
> same issues arose with WiMax/802.16 (RIP).  If there are dueling 
> approaches, it is often best to document them; rather than relying on 
> standards bodies to "choose a winner".

I'm not referring to competing technologies. I'm talking about one spec 
(e.g. SRv6) blatantly violating another one (IPv6).

When you have conflicting specs, you're kind of at odds with being a 
*standards* organization.... -- nobody knows what to expect, because one 
document says one thing, and another says another thing.

There's a reason for which we have the "Update" and "Obsolete" tags in 
RFCs...

-- 
Fernando Gont
SI6 Networks
e-mail: [e-mail]
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