On Jul 30, 2013, at 6:33 PM, Dave Cridland <dave(_at_)cridland(_dot_)net> wrote:
{{citation-needed}} - I've only ever seen specification conformance in
procurement documents for military systems, never for anything else.
It's quite common to see a list of supported RFCs in the spec sheet for a piece
of network hardware. University of New Hampshire testing lab does a lot of
testing, including home gateway testing, TRILL testing, and so on.
And moreover, I suspect that this doesn't matter; the kinds of people who're
procuring, as such - rather than either buying or just living with what
someone else bought - are a tiny minority. Real people, who drive most of the
internet's use, wouldn't know or care if their new router supported RFC 6592.
No, they don't, but they care that Comcast says it works, because they know
what happens if they use a router that Comcast doesn't say works.
Maybe this could be addressed by having a Marketing Label™ to attach to
internet access, in the same way that WiFi™ has helped 802.11a/b/g/n do so
well. I'm pretty sure than if (for example) Skype stamped on its box that you
were recommended to have Halfway Decent™ bandwidth, that an ISP could start
to market their Halfway Decent™ offering, and would be procuring Halfway
Decent™ equipment. And for what it's worth, I'd happily pay - indeed, do
happily pay - a premium to have Halfway Decent™ internet access. But I'm not
sure this is an IETF activity - perhaps an ISOC one though.
Yes, labeling is another very good solution—see the V6Ready label that was used
for the World IPv6 launch.