Mark Smith writes:
I think you might be missing the point. ECN only breaks when used
with previous *bad* implementations of the relevant RFCs.
Perhaps my point isn't clear: ECN implementations prevent communication,
rather than enhance it. I don't see what advantage ECN provides, but it
has become obvious from this discussion what it removes. A protocol and
implementation that leave you worse off than you would be without them
are a waste of time.
And what, exactly, is a "bad" implementation of relevant RFCs? One that
does not presciently foresee every good and not-so-good implementation
of every conceivably functionality that someone might dream up in a
spare moment for the eternal future?
I don't like solutions looking for problems. They tend to cause
problems themselves.
Apparently, FreeBSD and Windows don't implement ECN, since they both seem
to work for me with any site. This is how things should be.
At a guess, I find, that it is only 1% or less of web sites that I
visit that I have trouble with ECN.
How many Web sites do you have trouble accessing _without_ ECN?
That indicates that the other 99% of web sites firewalls got
it right. Following your logic, the 99% should be penelised
for the mistakes of the 1%.
No. Following my logic, if I can access 100% of sites without ECN,
there is no point in implementing ECN so that I can access only 99% of
them. I lose something with ECN, and I gain nothing. Therefore ECN is
a bad idea--feature bloat.
In the long term, accommodating developer naivety, rather than
penalising it, can only lead everybody down a dead end path.
Yes. That's why I'm not interested in ECN. Why encourage mistakes?
Improvement stops, at which point everybody suffers.
You assume that improvement is required.
If I have a system that does everything I require, I don't need
improvements. "Improvements" will destabilize my system uselessly,
while providing no benefit that I need. The assumption that information
systems must be perpetually "upgraded" and "improved" even in the
absence of clear need, and the axiomatic character that this assumption
seems to have among so many people in IT, is an affliction largely
peculiar to the information-technology industry, and to a lesser extent
to all high-tech industries.