Re: [v6ops] On/off switch [draft-ietf-v6ops-happy-eyeballs WGLC]

["Dan Wing" <[e-mail]>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf
> Of Keith Moore
> Sent: Friday, October 07, 2011 2:42 PM
> To: Joel jaeggli
> Cc: v6ops v6ops WG; Rémi Després
> Subject: Re: [v6ops] On/off switch [draft-ietf-v6ops-happy-eyeballs
> WGLC]
> 
> On Oct 7, 2011, at 5:33 PM, Joel jaeggli wrote:
> 
> >> It seems like there's a conflict of interest between:
> >>
> >> a) users' presumed interest in having good performance and
> >> reliability
> >
> > I don't have to presume that, I serve latency sensitive applications
> to
> > consumers. While there are several dimensions along which games are
> > monetized, it's easy enough to correlate latency to reveunue since we
> > track performance tweaks across millions of game sessions.
> 
> I don't disagree.  I just think we're on a bit of a slippery slope if
> we tell ourselves that we inherently know what's best for "users" in
> general.  A little bit of room for doubt, that allows us to have
> somewhat open minds, seems like a good thing.

A compromise:  the specification will explain the benefit of making
the preference between IPv4 and IPv6 configurable.  It already has
text around that benefit, but we will make it clearer that the
value can be tweakable and explain an advantage or two of making
it tweakable.

I would expect that Firefox (being Firefox) will have a 
config: setting to tweak it.  I expect that Safari (especially
Mobile Safari) to not have a setting.  Other products (e.g., 
wget, IE, Opera, curl) will fall in one of those camps.


As already discussed in the draft, simply choosing the fastest 
connection can be harmful to the services deliverable to the 
user.  Using IPv4 address sharing can breaks services which cannot 
be provided as well with IPv4 address sharing -- such as 
better geolocation, which may be necessary for delivering live 
video of sporting events (which are often restricted to certain 
geographic areas, to encourage people to attend in person 
and all that), better advertising, location-based features 
such as "directions from where I am now", "nearest pizza", 
and so on.  Another harm of IPv4 address sharing is 
non-TCP/-UDP transports which aren't supported with IPv4 
address sharing -- such as RSVP, SCTP, DCCP, native 
IPsec ESP, and others.

-d