Re: I-D Action: draft-ietf-6man-ipv6only-flag-03.txt

[Nick Hilliard <[e-mail]>]

Ole Troan wrote on 17/10/2018 22:48:
> If you believe there are comments within the scope of the draft that
> hasn’t been addressed I suggest you bring them back to the list.
Ole,

Almost the entire discussion surrounding the ipv6only-flag draft and its 
predecessors has been notable in that the authors either fully ignored 
the technical feedback on the wg mailing list, or acknowledged feedback 
but left it either partly or wholly unaddressed in the document.

Here's an example.  Drafts -00 to -02 contained the following:

>    o  In particular, this may overload switches in multi-segment
>       wireless networks because it will create IPv4 state for every dual
>       stack host.

I posted an analysis on Sep 8 
(https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ipv6/Yoy1Bo8A6WiRryqogTfr_R7FH9I) 
which went into some nuances about how switches work in the context of 
forwarding ipv4 frames, but the summary was:

"...layer 2 switches do not carry ipv4 state in any meaningful sense. 
It is technically misleading, bordering on flat-out incorrect, to 
suggest otherwise."

The draft was then updated from:

 > this may overload switches [...] because it will create IPv4 state

to:

 > this may overload switches [...] if the switches create IPv4 state

I'm at a loss as to how to respond to this other than to say that 
switches don't create ipv4 state and that it is disturbing to have to 
explicitly state something so fundamental in an IETF working group, 
particularly in the context of statements like: "the authors think that 
all your points are in fact dealt with in the text".

This is just one example from the draft, but there are several others, 
some as egregious as this.

What's happened now is that a new revision of the draft has been posted, 
and the process of posting it seems to have white-washed all the 
outstanding technical issues.  The onus of bringing these issues back to 
the working group has been piled on the plate of those who made the 
arguments in the first place, after having had them repeatedly dismissed 
any time they were brought up before.  This is not ok.

None of the issues I've brought up have been addressed properly.  As far 
as I'm concerned, they all remain open and the onus should be on the 
authors to address them.  There's a mailing list archive and it's 
searchable.  They need to do the work on this one.

Nick