RE: [RRG] Are host-stack modifications allowed or disallowed ?

["Tony Li" <tony.li@tony.li>]

|>  I think the question is whether The Solution should
|>  a) recognize that sites may legitimately influence TE policy and
|>  provide hooks;
|>  b) turn a blind eye to the issue, which will probably cause sites
|>  to influence TE by back door methods as today;
|>  or c) allow ISPs to defeat any attempt by sites to influence TE.
|>
|>  My preference is for a).
|
|End users have been doing TE for as long as they've had access to
|competitive offerings. It is not a thing to be feared.

Agreed, but reality intrudes.  The entity forwarding the traffic is largely
in control of what the next hop should be.  While it's not unreasonable for
everyone on the path to express an opinion, the basic architecture of
hop-by-hop forwarding means that the instantaneous decision made right now
may or may not take those varying opinions into account.  Does that fall
into Brian's definition of choice (a)?  

What if that also subsumes (c)?  If a solution provides an influence
mechanism, but the ISP can choose to disregard it, is that acceptable?  From
a purely pragmatic point of view, I don't see how we can prevent it without
re-architecting the basic contractual obligations that the 'net is built
from.

Tony
 



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