[OSPF] draft-acee-ospfv3-lsa-extend-00

[Anton Smirnov <[e-mail]>]

    Hi all,
    I saw this draft was published a few days ago and I wanted to 
discuss the approach taken by authors. In brief, this draft deeply 
changes OSPFv3 by totally reworking LSA encodings but stops short of 
calling it a new version of OSPF protocol. Per draft routers supporting 
new LSA encodings do not mix with RFC 5340 OSPFv3 routers and do not 
talk to them. So from deployment point of view section of the draft 
describing backward compatibility can be reduced to simply "Totally not 
backward compatible".

    I think no one will object that OSPFv3 rigid LSA format became big 
obstacle in introducing new features and even simply catching up with ISIS.
    I personally fully agree that OSPFv3 has to be deeply reworked.
    But in my opinion this draft is presenting OSPFv4 without calling it 
so - and carries into the new version of the protocol some outdated 
features of OSPFv2.
    Isn't it a time to admit that OSPFv3 is failure of epic proportions? 
And to admit that stance 'to introduce minimum changes into the 
protocol' taken when developing OSPFv3 architecture was deeply flawed, 
sacrificed long-term benefits of introducing new protocol version to 
short-term benefits of quick standardization and will continue causing 
difficulties unless addressed (with LSA encodings being the most obvious 
but not the only one)?

-- 
Anton