Next steps for rfc6874bis

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

As far as I can see we have one major issue, which needs to be
taken to the browser community for discussion, and one recurrent
issue that we probably need to resolve first.

Recurrent issue:
================

During the original discussion in 2012, and again recently, it
was suggested to change the delimiter from "%" to something else.
(The discussion in 2012 suggested "-", e.g. http://[fe80::abcd-en1].)
This was rejected in 2012 because it "Requires all IPv6 address
literal parsers and generators to be updated in order to allow
simple cut and paste; inconsistent with existing tools and practice."

Do we want to revisit this?

Major issue:
============

Should it be fe00::abcd%25eth0 or fe80::%eth0 ?

That is to say, should be formal ABNF be

   IP-literal = "[" ( IPv6address / IPv6addrz / IPvFuture  ) "]"
   ZoneID = 1*( unreserved / pct-encoded )
   IPv6addrz = IPv6address "%25" ZoneID

or

   IP-literal = "[" ( IPv6address / IPv6addrz / IPvFuture  ) "]"
   ZoneID = 1*( unreserved )
   IPv6addrz = IPv6address "%" ZoneID

(Ack to Andrew Cady for the second version.)

IMHO the answer on that issue must come from the browser community.
Operationally, the second form is more convenient, but if browsers
will never support it, it would be pointless to specify it.

Regards
    Brian