RE: Opportunistic Tunneling

["Christian Huitema" <huitema@windows.microsoft.com>]

> > I think the answer to this can be found by looking at what is
deployed
> > now.  In any case, I didn't think the IETF needs to be discussion
> economic
> > models.
> 
> Economic models, to an extent, make deployments realistic (or not), so
> I personally think this is somewhat of a factor in the discussions
> whether to recommend some model for deployment.  Of course, the IETF
> cannot _force_ anyone to a model.

I appreciate Pekka's concern for deployment, but I think that Bob is
right. The bottom line is that the IETF is an engineering organization,
and its members are not very qualified to assess business models, let
alone mandate them.

It certainly does not make sense to invest in a technology that cannot
be deployed, and anyone designing a new protocol should concern
themselves with deployment scenarios, e.g. what are the dependencies, do
we need to boil the ocean for this thing to fly, and other such
considerations. Indeed, when a technology requires third parties to
deploy servers or other helpers, the technology promoters should have a
plausible response to the question, "why would someone deploy your
stuff".

However, we have many examples of technologies that get deployed for
entirely different reasons than those initially advanced. The Arpanet,
for example, was supposed to provide better access to time-sharing
mainframes, and we know what happened. So, while there is a need for
some conscious reasoning about deployment, Bob's point is very valid. If
a technology is in fact deployed, then the IETF should assume that
someone somewhere saw a business case, and should not engage in a
guessing exercise.

-- Christian Huitema