[RRG] Re: Practical Proposals vs. endless theoretical discussions

[RJ Atkinson <rja@extremenetworks.com>]

Earlier, Robin Whittle said:
% Most talk is of clean-slate designs, flat routing, ILNP etc.
% which have nothing to do with our need to have something
% attractive to end-users in the next 4 to 8 years to solve
% the scaling problem in today's IPv4 Internet.

Robin,

  From the quoted text above, and other even less correct
text later in your recent note, I can only believe that you
haven't bothered to read the I-Ds about ILNP and haven't
reviewed the presentation made (by my colleague) at Routing RG
in Dublin.  Similarly, I can only believe you haven't bothered
to do a literature search and read the sundry published
research papers on the topic.  All of these are disappointing
in the context of an IRTF Research Group.

  As near as I can tell, every statement you have made about
ILNP is wrong.

  You would be so much more credible in your quite numerous
notes to the RG list if you would actually would read and study
topics before you make bold and incorrect assertions about them.
A large volume of notes is not an effective substitute for a
very few, short, well-written, and technically correct notes.

  Perhaps I am guilty for not having engaged in as much
"advocacy" as you have been doing, but it seems at best
negligent on your part to make the statement quoted above.

  Separately, it is utterly unrealistic to believe that the
deployed IPv4 Internet is going to accept *any* major changes
at this point.  I spend a great deal of my time talking with
users on various continents of the globe.  They have a very
consistent message that major changes to their IPv4 deployments
(e.g. site border router reconfigurations to enable any new
routing protocol or to enable any sort of new tunnelling) are
not going to happen.  The notion of "fixing IPv4", frankly,
is indeed a lost cause and we would better serve the Internet
by trying to ensure that IPv6 deployments can move to some
better architecture, whatever that might turn out to be.

  Finally, for some long while now it has seemed to me that
you confuse the concept of an "IRTF Research Group" (which
this is) with an "IETF Working Group" (which this is not).

  Research Groups are supposed to be deliberate, careful,
thorough, and are supposed to look at clean-slate architectures
in the course of their *research*.   Theoretical discussions
are explicitly within scope for any IRTF Research Group.

  By contrast, IETF WGs are developing engineering specifications
to be considered for standardisation.  Both roles are important,
but those two roles are very very different.  It seems to me that
your frustration is primarily that this RG is not a WG.  To the
extent that is correct, the issue is with one's incorrect
expectations, and is not a legitimate issue with the operation
or behaviour of the RG.

Yours,

Ran Atkinson
rja@extremenetworks.com



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