Richard L. Barnes <rbarnes(_at_)bbn(_dot_)com> wrote:
ISTM that the success of changes to the infrastructure depends on the
value those changes deliver to participants in the Internet economy...
So the question is rather how many problems there are in the current
infrastructure that cause people enough pain to do something.
Indeed -- _an_ interesting question... but perhaps not phrased quite
right: in truth, there are an arbitrarily large number of problems that
cause _somebody_ enough pain to do something.
I think there are at least a couple (improving BGP security, for
example), and the number will probably slowly shrink over time,
but in the long run, I expect there will ultimately always be a few
big things that need to be done that can't be done in end systems.
Start from the end: there _will_ be a number of things that shouldn't
be done in end systems. End systems _really_don't_ want to worry about
the route packets follow -- at most they want to worry about delay,
jitter, and order of delivery. But they _will_ work with whatever tools
are available to ameliorate such worries.
The number of problems will most surely _increase_ over time, not
shrink.
BGP security is a _dreadful_ example. It conflates weaknesses of the
original design with issues entirely out-of-scope of the original design.
And the original design was seriously flawed by defining algorithms
instead of meanings.
Nonetheless, the example does serve to illustrate a weakness of IETF
process -- that it's much easier to get traction on small fixes to
parts of the problem than on migration to a design which avoids the
problems.
BTW, I find it interesting to see how little of the work originating
in the Security area has gained traction. I wonder to what extent this
results from:
- cycles being expended on cross-area reviews;
- recommending IPsec whether or not it could be deployed for the use;
- the inherent complexity of key infrastructure?
--
John Leslie <john(_at_)jlc(_dot_)net>
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