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Re: Please review draft-housley-rfc2050bis-00.txt

2013-03-20 21:49:33
Hi John,

This is an individual comment.

At 16:38 20-03-2013, John Curran wrote:
The RFC is not intended to establish anything new, only to recognize
the existing agreements and practices of the IETF in this area.

Ok. I'll defer to the learned individuals of the IETF in respect to the intended status. It is my understanding that the document also aims to replace BCP 12.

The explanation is in Section 5 (Summary of Changes Since RFC 2050);
isn't that usual practice for an RFC which replaces another in entirety?

I can only express an individual opinion and not what is usual practice for an RFC. The few drafts I have read usually had an explanation in the Introduction section to help the reader. I don't feel strongly about this. I am more interested in seeing whether the IESG will file a DISCUSS about this.

By the way the summary of changes is very short.

The text in RFC 5855 that you reference is with respect only to the
two top-level reverse domains, i.e. "all nameservers concerned" is
preceded by:

  "1. IN-ADDR-SERVERS.ARPA to the nameservers listed in Section 2;
   2. IP6-SERVERS.ARPA to the nameservers listed in Section 3."

I preferred not to quote RFC 5855 in its entity. My reading of that document and the discussions leading to it is that it is up to the IAB to provide technical guidance to ICANN about .arpa (re. reverse DNS). I don't see any mention of "Internet Numbers Registry System" in RFC 3172 or RFC 5855.

I can only say that in my opinion the omission of the finer details does not have any negative consequences for the RIRs.

It looks to be plain English to me...  can you be more specific
about what part of the text which is problematic?

  "Per the delineation of responsibility for Internet address policy
   issues specified in the IETF/IAB/ICANN MOU [RFC2860], discussions
   regarding the evolution of the Internet Numbers Registry System
   structure, policy, and processes are to take place within the ICANN
   framework and will respect ICANN's core values [ICANNBL]."

How does the above affect the IETF, e.g. what process changes happened between RFC 2050 and draft-housley-rfc2050bis-00? Why is it even relevant to the IETF?

  "These core values encourage broad, informed participation reflecting
   the functional, geographic, and cultural diversity of the Internet at
   all levels of policy development and decision-making, as well as the
   delegation of coordination functions and recognition of the policy
   roles of other responsible entities that reflect the interests of
   affected parties."

I do not understand what the above means in practice. The IETF is having a lengthy discussion about diversity. The IETF community might learn from ICANN if it shares its experience of how it has successfully tackled cultural diversity.

  "The discussions regarding Internet Numbers Registry evolution must
   also continue to consider the overall Internet address architecture
   and technical goals referenced in this document."

After reading draft-housley-rfc2050bis-00 it is my understanding that the Internet Numbers Registry is out of scope for the IETF. I read the above as meaning that the IETF is telling RIRs and ICANN that they must also follow technical guidance from the IETF in respect to the Internet address archtecture.

 "The foregoing does not alter the IETF's continued responsibility for
  the non-policy aspects of Internet addressing such as the architectural
  definition of IP address and AS number spaces and specification of
  associated technical goals and constraints in their application, assignment
  of specialized address blocks, and experimental technical assignments as
  documented in RFC 2860."

The above sounds like something from the legal department. I unfortunately cannot hire a lawyer to tell me whether that text matches the text in RFC 2860. I don't see how one can expect informed participation when the text to be read might be unclear to the people from the rest of the world.

As an off-topic comment, it seems like there hasn't been careful review of an IANA policy for ASNs. The wise members of the IESG would have caught the bug.

By the way I read my previous message [1] again and the reply [2] I received and I noticed that there wasn't any response to two of the questions.

Regards,
-sm

1. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg78135.html
2. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg78141.html