[136291] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: quietly....
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Owen DeLong)
Wed Feb 2 06:45:35 2011
From: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
In-Reply-To: <83A5D662-4055-4A0D-A62A-5F6552E46F20@muada.com>
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2011 03:39:14 -0800
To: Iljitsch van Beijnum <iljitsch@muada.com>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Feb 2, 2011, at 12:16 AM, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
> On 2 feb 2011, at 4:51, Dave Israel wrote:
>=20
>> They were features dreamed up by academics, theoreticians, and =
purists, and opposed by operators.
>=20
> Contrary to popular belief, the IETF listens to operators and wants =
them to participate. Few do. For instance, I don't seem to remember your =
name from any IETF mailinglists. (I could be mistaken, though.)
>=20
> There is a fundamental difference between designing something and =
using something. Both inform the other. But letting users with no design =
experience create something is a short road to failure. (Letting =
designers run stuff isn't much better.)
>=20
> I always like to say the internet is an infinite universe. In an =
infinite universe, everything that's possible exist. Same in the =
internet. Think of some way to do something, however ill-informed, and =
someone is doing it that way.
>=20
> Example: if you give administrators the option of putting a router =
address in a DHCP option, they will do so and some fraction of the time, =
this will be the wrong address and things don't work. If you let routers =
announce their presence, then it's virtually impossible that something =
goes wrong because routers know who they are. A clear win. Of course it =
does mean that people <gasp> have to learn something new when adopting =
IPv6.
I would point to 6to4 and the RAs coming from Windows Laptops that think =
they are routers because someone clicked on an ICS checkbox as a counter =
example that letting things that think they are routers announce their =
presence is, in fact, proof that it is not only possible that something =
goes wrong, but, commonplace.
So, your clear win has proven to be a rather large lose in a number of =
environments.
Owen
