Re: Open question and Critical dependencies

[Dave Crocker <dhc2@dcrocker.net>]

Thomas,

It is clear that the main goal of virtually every response to my postings, on
this thread, is to fend off any serious attention to the questions I am
raising.  Everything is wonderful and my concerns are either silly or
excessive.

Still, for some reason, I feel the need of responding to some of your
comments.

Maybe my compulsion has something to do with just how important I think the
topic is, and how serious the risks are in the current work plan.  Plus I
remain impressed that folks are so thoroughly unconcerned about the IETF's
problematic track record over recent years, largely due to exactly this sort
of failure to plan for easy adoption and early utility.


> >  1. What does "This solution should work whether or not the peer site
> >  supports the shim6 protocol" mean in the draft charter and how can it
> >  succeed?
>
>  I would assume that it means you can't require everyone else to also
>  implement shim6 in order to have working communication. I.e., if a peer
>  doesn't implement shim6, one falls back to standard IPv6, warts and all.

Does it bother anyone that my question generated two, entirely different and
equally plausible explanations of the draft charter text?  Mayhaps the text
needs a bit of clarification?


> >  2. Why is shim6 limited to IPv6?  What is it about the problem space
> >  and/or the solution space that is required to exclude IPv4?
....
>  Another way of looking at it is that if the shim6 work is successful,
>  we'll know a whole lot more about the problem space and the various issues
>  involved in coming up with a solution. At that point, doing an IPv4
>  solution would presumably be a lot easier

Since the point I raised was a concern about excluding IPv4 from this
solution, your response confirms that, since 'doing an IPv4 solution" means
"doing a different solution".


> >  3. What happens to shim6 if it must operate through a NAT?
> >
>  This is a good question, but one that I don't think we should get hung up
>  on in terms of a requirement that shim6 work in the presence of NATs. What
>  I think the WG should do is (as it's doing its normal work) is to keep in
>  mind the NAT question and try to avoid breaking NAT as it develops its
>  protocols.

I did not raise a question about breaking NATs.  I raised a question about
NATs breaking shim6.


But I guess the "IPv6 will take over the world AND will eliminate the use of
NATs" has become the IETF's version of the OSI wishful-thinking religion.

Worked great for them.

No doubt it work even better for us.

Can't wait to see how this turns out, after 3-6 years of work.


  d/
  ---
  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
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