Hi Olle,
One thing I’m missing is a continued focus on IPv6.
If you were referring to the blog, I had to choose a set of issues to
highlight. But I think you are referring to actual IETF or industry focus, so
lets talk...
I think there has to be some pressure and ways to handle IPv6 bugs in current
RFCs outside of the normal process.
We have submitted several drafts to the dispatch and sipcore working groups,
all died because of a lack of interest and discussion in the group. The bugs
we found in the SIP protocol still remains and needs to be fixed in order for
SIP implementations to handle dual stacks properly - but I can’t find a way
to get this published following the normal process.
So we have bugs related to IPv6, we have a group of authors and the documents
still are not going anywhere because a lack of interest.
I know that we have several bugs related to TLS handling in the SIP protocol
as well. The handling of IPv6 issues doesn’t make me very positive about even
bothering with writing any drafts about them.
This sounds familiar from many contexts, in standards, products, and open
source :-)
Everybody is focused on adding new features, and making sure the thing actually
works under all circumstances gets sadly less attention.
Yes, I am pessimistic. Yes, I am pretty sure there are other protocols that
have bugs related to both IPv6 and TLS handling. I think the IETF needs to
find a way to handle these even in low-energy working groups like the SIPcore
group.
I don’t think we can entirely ignore our normal process. And by “normal
process” I don’t necessarily mean the formal part of our process, but rather
the fact that the core function of standards is that you have multiple people
that agree on something. One or even a couple of people can’t be the only ones
looking at something if we want to have a standard. That being said, the
existence of a bug is a bad thing. It says something about the state or
deployment of that particular part of the standard.
However, I am not pessimistic. We often highlight issues in the IETF and ensure
that chairs and participants understand the importance, and then we pull
through. Let me talk to my fellow ADs about what we could about this case. Do
you have a list of drafts that you would like to move forward?
Jari
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