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Re: Resolving geo discussions

On vrijdag, apr 11, 2003, at 19:35 Europe/Amsterdam, J. Noel Chiappa wrote:

So how do we resolve this in a way that is satisfactory to everyone?



We probably can't. The two sides are pretty firmly entrenched, and 
without

changing that, some group is likely to be unhappy.



Still, I think it would be useful to try sufficiently hard that the 
remaining disagreements can only be attributed to differing world 
views, and not to lack of understanding or effort. Then at least we all 
know we don't have to do it again for a good long time.




Is there a way we can arrive on some consensus as to whether the
(potential) downsides are worth the potential gain?





No, because there will almost certainly be a large contingent who do 
not

agree with that position (that "the (potential) downsides are worth the

potential gain"). So I don't think any consensus around that position 
is

feasible.



Why not? We're all reasonable people, aren't we? Obviously everyone is 
going to assess things (especially the risks) differently, but a nice 
large safety margin should help here.



By the way, why would people who are against geo aggregation be against 
trying it? That way, they get to say "I told you so" when it fails.




As Christian points out, there is nothing to stop people from 
experimenting

with it locally, though.



I think what many people fail to realize is that you get to encode a 
small amount of information in the addressing hierarchy "for free". 
Being able to determine where a network is (for whatever definition of 
"where" we choose to apply) just by looking at the first bits of the 
prefix can be very useful in certain circumstances. However, the fact 
that this information is there doesn't mean everyone automatically has 
to act on it.



In other words: if having an organization announce the /32 is the only 
way to get this show on the road, that's not the best way to do it, but 
it's better than nothing. But we should then still allocate these /32s 
from some kind of geographical addressing scheme so we get to do more 
in the future without renumbering if this is successful.