Re: [Last-Call] Last Call: <draft-ietf-taps-interface-25.txt> (An Abstract Application Layer Interface to Transport Services) to Proposed Standard

It's good to see this work advancing. I have a few comments:

1. Unless I've missed it, the terminology and notation only support IP addresses in their human-readable form. There are situations where an API user needs to manipulate addresses as binary objects. (The Python ipaddress.ip_address class is an example of how to handle this,
with its .packed property.) How does the TAPS API expose this?

2. The same applies to interface names, which (as described in RFC 4007, where they are called Zone Identifiers) correspond to  underlying interface indexes (integers). IPv6 addresses are actually {address, interface_index} 2-tuples - the interface index is not optional, it's just normally defaulted to zero. I think this property needs to be listed in section 1.1, not hidden away in section 6.1, with a citation of RFC 4007.

3. I realise that this is an abstract API, but for such an ambitious project, I am quite disappointed that there is no Implementation Status section per BCP205. How many implementations already exist?

Regards
    Brian Carpenter

On 17-Feb-24 03:17, The IESG wrote:
> 
> The IESG has received a request from the Transport Services WG (taps) to
> consider the following document: - 'An Abstract Application Layer Interface
> to Transport Services'
>    <draft-ietf-taps-interface-25.txt> as Proposed Standard
> 
> The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits final
> comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
> last-call@ietf.org mailing lists by 2024-03-01. Exceptionally, comments may
> be sent to iesg@ietf.org instead. In either case, please retain the beginning
> of the Subject line to allow automated sorting.
> 
> Abstract
> 
> 
>     This document describes an abstract application programming
>     interface, API, to the transport layer that enables the selection of
>     transport protocols and network paths dynamically at runtime.  This
>     API enables faster deployment of new protocols and protocol features
>     without requiring changes to the applications.  The specified API
>     follows the Transport Services architecture by providing
>     asynchronous, atomic transmission of messages.  It is intended to
>     replace the BSD sockets API as the common interface to the transport
>     layer, in an environment where endpoints could select from multiple
>     network paths and potential transport protocols.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The file can be obtained via
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-taps-interface/
> 
> This draft is going for a 2nd IETF last call due to the changes resulted during the IESG evaluation. A diff towards the -20 version of this document should show the changes since the previous IETF last call.
> 
> 
> No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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