Tom,
Others, like ipng, seem to have
tinkeritis; it is always possible to improve - or at least to change things -
so
let's go on changing. The name may change - now it's 6man - but the
discussions, - DHCP, ULA, routing header, RA, ND, compression, it's more than
IPv4(128) - rumble on. I understand the discussions but do not have the
relevant
experience to judge whether they are material changes or not, and so long as
that remains the case, then the number of fresh I-Ds leads me to conclude,
it's
not done, better wait.
You have to separate the sometimes wild discussion, the regular
maintenance, and new features (some which aren't even IPv6
specific).
As Thomas wrote, indeed the IPv6 core specifications are done. I
do not expect or plan to charter work relating to significant changes.
I believe what the world needs with regards to IPv6 is that we allow
vendors to implement, improve existing implementations, people to
deploy, etc. -- not continuous redesign of the core parts, or the
suggestions that IPv6 should have features X, Y, and Z to make it
more appealing to deploy. For better or worse, the train has left
the station.
This is not to say that we will not do anything. In particular:
*Maintenance*: We are committed to fix bugs etc as we discover
them. This is not at all different from what we do for other
IETF protocols. Case in point: routing header. We deprecated
type 0 routing header due to concerns relating to its use in
amplification attacks. But there are similar issues in IPv4 source
routing functionality. I have a document on my table suggesting
revision of some of the existing default settings and processing
rules. We'll deal with that, too.
We will continue to maintain and further develop both DHCPv4
and DHCPv6. One of the questions on the table is whether DHCPv6
has sufficient support for managed networks, and whether additional
features are needed. We'll deal with that, just like any other extension.
I have a hard time seeing major changes in ND. I don't know what
you referred to with "Compression". Maybe the work that we're
doing with progressing the IPv6 over PPP specs on the standards
track? This is normal IETF RFC status updates as we gain more
documented interop experience.
*Transition*: This is one particular area of concern, and we're
considering whether something new (or revised) is needed.
I think we do, but I also think that it will not change significantly
what networks commonly do. I certainly don't plan on changing
anything in the networks that I deal with, because existing
transition mechanisms work quite well for them.
*New functionality*: This is also business as usual. Some of
these things are IPv6 specific. Others are not; a good example
of that is the work done for scalable routing which is something
that we are going to need first in the IPv4 routing table, as
it continues to fragment.
Jari
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