Subject: RE: Should people still be making IPv4 products?

From: "Christian Huitema" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Dec 2002 21:20:37 -0800

> There appears to be a small community of people who think that indefinite
> stalling of this document will somehow contribute to faster adoption of
> IPv6. The sad irony here is that the unending stalling of IPv4LL has just
> served to keep it in the spotlight, whereas if it had been published a
> year or two ago, it would be largely forgotten by now.

Look, I don't want to create some kind of misunderstanding. My only concerns are technical, focused on the compatibility issue. You cannot cite availability on old Windows platform as a reason to standardize the autoconfigured IPv4 addresses and not be concerned at the same time with the compatibility issues. I am concerned with two of these compatibility issues. 
 
One, the TTL issue, is fairly trivial -- it suffice to say that the TTL "should" be set to 255 but that for the time being testing the incoming value is optional, as it breaks compatibility. I know that some other folks in our Microsoft team have expressed different opinions -- hey, the IETF is about individual participation. In any case, there seem to be at least a rough consensus in the WG for this formulation.
 
The other issue is the nature of these addresses, and specifically whether they should be used "in addition to" other IPv4 addresses. I think they should not, as adding this "link local" concept to IPv4 is effectively a change in the IPv4 architecture, which is way outside the charter of the working group. I believe that there should be provision in the text, or in the application statement, that such autoconfigured addresses must never be used if the node could acquire an address by another mean, e.g. DHCP.
 
As far as still making IPv4 products, that is a business decision. My personal position is that we should freeze IPv4, and effectively only innovate with IPv6 products.
 
-- Christian Huitema

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From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 01:00:06 -0500

> The other issue is the nature of these addresses, and specifically 
> whether they should be used "in addition to" other IPv4 addresses. I 
> think they should not, as adding this "link local" concept to IPv4 is 
> effectively a change in the IPv4 architecture, which is way outside 
> the charter of the working group

IPv4 already allows interfaces to have multiple IP addresses.   IPv4 
link-local addresses already work, and have worked for quite some time, 
and are deployed on the vast majority of all deployed devices that run 
TCP/IP.   So you are asserting here that while these two statements, 
taken in isolation, do not constitute a change in the IPv4 
architecture, when taken together they do.   This is a surprising 
statement.

I don't think zeroconf needs to worry about this - if the right thing 
to do is to put these two things together, the working group should do 
so, write it up, go to last call, get internal rough consensus, and 
pass the buck to the IESG.   If the IESG believes that this is 
something that the working group should not have done, it can send it 
back.   But it's not the working group's job to second-guess the IESG, 
and it _is_ the working group's job to define its charter, and to 
advance drafts.   A *tremendous* amount of time gets wasted discussing 
meta-issues like this, and it's pointless.   Figure out what to say, 
say it, and see if it flies.

> I believe that there should be provision in the text, or in the 
> application statement, that such autoconfigured addresses must never 
> be used if the node could acquire an address by another mean, e.g. 
> DHCP.

I do not believe you have presented any reason to support this belief, 
but you are certainly entitled to hold it even in the absence of any 
such reason.

> As far as still making IPv4 products, that is a business decision. My 
> personal position is that we should freeze IPv4, and effectively only 
> innovate with IPv6 products.

Just today I was sitting in my father's office trying to debug a 
problem with his computer, and decided I needed to ssh to my laptop, 
which was upstairs.   My first thought was "oh, rats, I wonder what my 
IP address is..."  My second thought was, "wait, I wonder if I can use 
link-local ad-hoc networking.   Hm.   'ssh dra-chi.local.'   Yay!   It 
works!"   This is how networking should work.   It should Just Work.   
You are right: we should all just use IPv6.   But I'm really glad that 
some folks decided to make sure that IPv4 worked nicely too, because 
that is in fact what all of us poor bastards here in the 'States are 
stuck with right now.

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From: "John C. Welch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 01:05:00 -0500

On 12/29/2002 00:20, "Christian Huitema" <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> As far as still making IPv4 products, that is a business decision. My personal
> position is that we should freeze IPv4, and effectively only innovate with
> IPv6 products.

Are you really advocating saddling the common user with the current IPv4
situation for the next 5 to 7 years?

john

-- 
John C. Welch
Consultant III
Administrative Computing
(617) 253 - 1368 work
(508) 579 - 7380 cell
bynkii2          AIM

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 09:00:23 -0500

> But it's not the working group's job to second-guess the IESG,
> and it _is_ the working group's job to define its charter

no it's not.  working groups do not define their charters;
they suggest charters to IESG.  IESG defines the charter.