[Taps] A proposal to throw out RTP

[Michael Welzl <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

I know this has been discussed before, but only briefly. I have two arguments that I'd like to bring forward towards removing RTP (/RTCP) from draft-ietf-taps-transports-04 and the documents that will follow it. I understand that it's a non-obvious question whether RTP should be considered a transport protocol or not, and I don't want to take a side in this or step on anyone's toes here - these are more practical, pragmatic considerations, and I'd just like to see how people react. If folks go crazy in response to this I won't keep arguing, but I'd be happy if I'd see some agreement:

Argument #1: RTP implementations need to be tied closer to the application than the implementation of transport such as TCP, DCCP, SCTP. There is usually a very tight interaction with the codec and RTP - a reaction to one specific incoming RTCP message, for instance. So I'd rather see a future TAPS system being *used* by RTP instead of *providing* RTP functionality.

Argument #2: TAPS has a non-negligible risk of ending up as an academic exercise. I understand that but I don't want that - I think we should do our best to keep TAPS "real". If that is our goal, including the world's largest protocol isn't perhaps ideal... I think it should be in our interest to try to keep the list in draft-ietf-taps-transports-04.txt reasonably contained.

Cheers,
Michael