From: Noel Chiappa, Monday, July 02, 2007 6:08 AM
> From: itojun(_at_)itojun(_dot_)org (Jun-ichiro itojun Hagino)
> if NAT-PT is to be made historic due to the claims presented in
the
> draft, all of the NAT related documents have to be made historic
> ...
> and all of the NAT traversal documents .. has to be banned at
once.
> itojun(_at_)fahrenheit 911
The irony of that email address, appended to that message, is pretty
good.
Noel
:-)
Maybe someone should pause and consider why the IETF publishes
specifications, or informational documents. Over the last 15 years, I
have seen a drift of attitude, basically from engineering to a policy
making.
In the old engineering attitude, working groups were created because
several like-minded engineers wanted to develop some function, or
protocol. It was important for them to get together, so they could
voluntarily agree on the details. If they did not, each would develop
their own version, and there will be no interoperability. The result was
documented in a set of RFC, so that whoever wanted to develop a
compatible product could. IANA registries are used to ensure that when
options arise, the options are numbered in an orderly manner.
In the policy making attitude, working groups are created to control
evolution of a particular function. The working group members are
concerned that someone else might be implementing something harmful to
the Internet. Their goal is not so much to develop products as to ensure
that non-conforming products do not get developed. IANA registries are
used to control extensibility of the resulting protocols, to make sure
that "bad" options never get a number.
In short, the IETF evolved from an informal gathering where engineers
will agree on how to do things, to a reactive body that mostly aims at
controlling evolution of the Internet. Is that really what we want?
-- Christian Huitema
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