Keith Moore wrote:
Ed,
We agree that the net has never been entirely homogeneous, and that it
would be a Bad Thing if people were forced to make their local nets
conform to someone's idea of the Right Way to do their networks.
Yes.
Thus, I have few problems with folks who want to use NATs within their
local networks and who understand and accept the limitations of that
approach - even though, as you are fond of pointing out, this is an
example of a local optimization that is sub-optimal for the global
Internet community.
If it would be imposed. But IMO it is, however, globally optimal for the
Internet
community to be able to solve their problems locally.
OTOH, I have a big problem with constraining and/or encouraging folks
to use NATs, while misleading folks about their limitations;
misleading is always bad.
and with attempts to make NATs a part of the Internet architecutre and thereby
forcing everyone to accept those limitations.
This is where we seem to diverge. IMO: (1) NATs are part of the Net
archictecture and
a harbinger, not an intrusion or a misfit; (2) everything has limitations, but
having no
choice is always the worse limitation.
So, rather than following the "let a thousand standards bloom" dictum, I think
that NATs (and similar approaches) are actually a way to provide for
interoperation
and reduce heterogeneity -- and its effect, which is isolation.
Cheers,
Ed Gerck