Re: draft note to IPv6 WG on DNS discovery

[Bob Hinden <hinden@iprg.nokia.com>]

Randy,

At 02:17 PM 3/4/2003, Randy Bush wrote:
> > - If I were to take it to the IESG/IAB (who get to review all WG
> >   charters), I would expect to get strong pushback on including the
> >   DNS discovery work in the IPv6 WG. Reasons would include:
>
> we keep saying that the whole ietf, e.g., apps, should be working
> on ipv6.  well, a corollary is that we have to let go of some of
> the work.  dns and discovery are obviously already being worked on
> elsewhere.  the conclusion seems obvious
I don't think there is any objection to this view in the IPv6 working 
group.  The work in question was an effort to extend the IPv6 Stateless 
Address Autoconfiguration mechanisms to also provide the addresses of DNS 
resolvers to allow an IPv6 host to be able to function on the 
Internet.  How we got to the current proposal is a long painful story that 
I am not sure anyone wants to repeat or talk about.

My involvement in this work was to do the above because I thought that the 
RFC2462 mechanisms were incomplete without it.  I still do.  It's been very 
frustrating for the people who share this view since there has been so much 
push back on what seemed to me like a simple requirement.  I suspect that 
people who thought it was important failed to make a clear case for it and 
the people against it failed to understand what the goal was.

I think this outcome, while inevitable at this point in time, is 
unfortunate because it leaves incomplete one of IPv6 real features (i.e., 
autoconfiguration) and this will in my view hinder its overall deployment.

Bob