Evaluation: draft-ietf-tsvwg-udp-lite - The UDP Lite Protocol to Proposed Standard

[IESG Secretary <iesg-secretary@ietf.org>]

Last Call to expire on: May 15, 2002

	Please return the full line with your position.

                    Yes    No-Objection  Discuss *  Abstain  


Harald Alvestrand   [   ]     [   ]       [   ]      [   ] 
Steve Bellovin      [   ]     [   ]       [   ]      [   ] 
Scott Bradner       [   ]     [   ]       [   ]      [   ] 
Randy Bush          [   ]     [   ]       [   ]      [   ] 
Patrik Faltstrom    [   ]     [   ]       [   ]      [   ] 
Bill Fenner         [   ]     [   ]       [   ]      [   ] 
Ned Freed           [   ]     [   ]       [   ]      [   ] 
Allison Mankin      [ X ]     [   ]       [   ]      [   ] 
Thomas Narten       [   ]     [   ]       [   ]      [   ] 
Erik Nordmark       [   ]     [   ]       [   ]      [   ] 
Jeff Schiller       [   ]     [   ]       [   ]      [   ] 
Bert Wijnen         [   ]     [   ]       [   ]      [   ]
Alex Zinin          [   ]     [   ]       [   ]      [   ] 

 2/3 (9) Yes or No-Objection opinions needed to pass. 
 
 * Indicate reason if 'Discuss'.
 
^L
To: IETF-Announce:;
Dcc: *******
Cc: RFC Editor <rfc-editor@isi.edu>,
 Internet Architecture Board <iab@iab.org>, tsvwg@ietf.org
From: The IESG <iesg-secretary@ietf.org>
Subject: Protocol Action: The UDP Lite Protocol to Proposed Standard
-------------


The IESG has approved the Internet-Draft 'The UDP Lite Protocol'
<draft-ietf-tsvwg-udp-lite-01.txt> as a Proposed Standard.  This
document is the product of the Transport Area Working Group Working
Group.  The IESG contact persons are Allison Mankin and Scott Bradner.


Technical Summary

This document describes the UDP-Lite protocol, which is similar to 
UDP (RFC 768), but can also serve applications that in error-prone 
network environments prefer to have partially damaged payloads 
delivered rather than discarded. If this feature is not used, UDP- 
Lite is semantically identical to UDP. UDP-Lite provides a checksum 
with optional partial coverage. When using this option, a packet is 
divided into a sensitive part (covered by the checksum) and an 
insensitive part (not covered by the checksum). Errors in the 
insensitive part will not cause the packet to be discarded by the 
transport layer. 

Working Group Summary

The Transport Working Group supported advancement of this 
specification. There was Last Call dissent about two aspects: first, 
its original plan of being a variant of UDP itself. The response was 
to develop the protocol as a separate transport protocol, which has 
better properties in general. Second, there were questions about the 
applicability. For this, the debate was referred to the authors' more 
detailed conference paper on audio use of errored data. The flexibility 
of UDP-Lite is not for broad classes of applications, but the conclusion 
was that it has utility for a significant class of cellular uses now and 
should be advanced.

Protocol Quality

The protocol was reviewed for the IESG by Allison Mankin. There have 
been implementations for a number of years and many experimental trials.

RFC Editor Notes:

RFC Editor, please replace "[RFC-768]" with "(RFC 768)" in the 
Abstract.

RFC Editor, please add before the Copyright Notice a section headed 
"IPR Notices", containing RFC 2026, Sections 10.4 (A) and 10.4(B)