it's not as if NAT got killed because people in IETF objected to it.
yes, but do you think that was because that ietf was powerless to stop it, or
because that ietf was willing to let consenting adults try out new ideas? i
was there, and from what i saw, it was the former.
it's more like IETF's unwillingness to look beyond NAT to the underlying
problems (other than address space exhaustion) that made NAT attractive
caused IETF to miss an opportunity to produce something better.
the underlying problem was that people in the field didn't want universality
among endpoints, either for security or policy reasons, and people in that
ietf wanted universality among endpoints -- a single addressing system and
a single connectivity realm. that ietf said, you don't really want that, you
should use the internet as it was intended, and solve the problems you're
having in some way that preserves universality of endpoints. the field said,
you are completely out of your minds, we're going to ignore ietf now. then
later on, ietf said, if you're going to do it, then we ought to help you with
some standards support.
i'm at the "ignore ietf now" stage with things like DNSSEC DLV, and it's going
to come as no shock to me if SIXXS is at the "ignore ietf now" stage with ULA.
all it takes is a couple of loud or influential people to prevent consensus
from forming. the quality of the idea or its potential to shape human events
is at best a secondary ingredient in the ietf mix.
which is why i'm proposing a standard of "demonstrable immediate harm" rather
than the current system of "that's not how you should do it" or "that's not
how i would do it".
again, I think the burden needs to be on the proposers to demonstrate
that what they're proposing is overall a good thing.
that's just not possible. and it hasn't been behind any stunning success ever,
although there are some stunning failures i think i could lay at that doorstep.
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