Last week the IAB and the IESG met with the leadership of IEEE 802. One of the
things that was discussed was the IEEE policies for allocating EtherTypes, and
the IESG is considering the attached IESG Statement to implement an IETF policy
that aligns with the IEEE policy.
If you have an comments on this proposed policy, please raise them on
ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org.
Russ
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The IEEE Registration Authority Committee (RAC) assigns Ethertypes.
(See http://standards.ieee.org/develop/regauth/ethertype/.) Some IETF
protocol specification make use of Ethertypes. Since Ethertypes are a
fairly scarce resource, the IEEE RAC will not assign an Ethertype to a
new IETF protocol specification that needs a new Ethertype until the
IESG has approved the specification for publication as an RFC.
To let the IEEE RAC know that the IESG has approved an IETF protocol
specification for publication, all future requests for assignment of
Ethertypes for IETF protocol specifications will be made by the IESG.
Note that playpen Ethertypes have been assigned in IEEE 802 [1] for use
during development and experimentation.
[1] IEEE Std 802a-2003 (Amendment to IEEE Std 802-2001).
IEEE standard for Local and Metropolitan Area Networks:
Overview and Architecture -- Amendment 1: Ethertypes for
Prototype and Vendor-Specific Protocol Development.