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Re: Resolving geo discussions


In theory the IETF gives large credence to "working code". Since this
theoretical argument appears unresolvable, perhaps the way to proceed
would be to allow some pilots (as previously suggested) and see whether
geo works in practice.

The proponents get an opportunity to prove that it works. The opponents
get an opportunity to demonstrate the damage that the pilots caused
to the v6 DFZ. But any damage would be limited to the extent of the
pilots.

The trick is getting the resources to execute the pilots. As long as this
WG allows the allocation of a few pilot geo blocks (and allows sufficient
freedom for the proponents to make their attempt), the proponents
have most of the burden of making the attempt.

Just my $0.02 regarding how to resolve this in a satisfactory way.

Darrell Root
droot@cisco.com

On Friday, April 11, 2003, at 12:22 PM, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:

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.