[address-policy-wg] Re: [ipv6-wg] IPv6 micro allocation or something else?

Hi,

On Thu, Nov 17, 2005 at 11:50:32AM +0100, Mohsen Souissi wrote:
> ==> This is just amazing! I have been follwing this topic for more
> than two years and I have the feeling that we are making again and
> again the history! I remember that when the IPv6 "PI" issue was first
> raised in the IPv6/LIR wgs ("LIR" was the old name for "AP" at that
> time), the answer was "PI is out of scope of this wg". 

I'm not sure which WG you are talking about (IPv6 WG or LIR WG?), but
it's certainly in scope for the address policy WG.

The topic of PI space for IPv6 just has been avoided like the plague
so far - nobody seems to be able to define proper criteria for IPv6 PI, 
and I'm fairly sure we will not be able to reach consensus for IPv4-style 
PI ("come and ask for it, and that's all you need to do").

Personally, I've seen some doomsayers so far ("IPv6 will die if we have
no PI!"), but I can't remember having seen a proposal for rules that let
"those that we all agree should have it" have PI, and "those that we
all agree should not have it" not have it.  Which reflects on the problem
- there are many readers here that have good arguments against any sort
of PI (that is not needed for DNS purposes, due to protocol constraints
[brokenness]), and others see any possible alternative as "this is just
not going to work" (read "I'm politically opposing this, and because it
isn't PI, it is not acceptable")...  so getting consensus will be tough.

> Now, I'm surprised that we are going back to the original issue and
> asking to first solve the PI problem...

"We" aren't.  These are just some comments by some of the participants.

But of course "we" will, if someone formulates a specific policy proposal
how to make PI work.

> If that's to be done and while we ar at it, we can see again how RIPE
> is the only RIR not considering TLD networks as "critical
> infrastructure" while an appropriate policy has been already
> implemented in all other existing RIRs for a long while (please
> revisit the comparative matrix of RIR policies at
> http://www.ripe.net/info/resource-admin/rir-comp-matrix-rev.html and
> see how RIPE is lagging behind in this matter. Some of this
> mailing-list member would say: "that was our choice!"). Isn't it a
> European speciality to discuss over again and again issues without
> coming to any solution?  

It certainly is an European speciality to bring up the same discussion
again and again without any new facts that might affect the outcome.

DNS is special, in that the protocol is fairly broken, but too widespread
to re-do over night.  This warrants special cases for the root, and 
maybe special cases for *anycast* - but nobody is asking for special cases
for normal unicast DNS servers.  That's what glue records are for, and
they work fairly well.

DNS is critical infrastructure, but nobody has explained properly yet why
"critical infrastructure" (in itself) requires a different way to get
IP addresses.  Even so, Google is likely more critical to more people
than some of the ccTLDs out there...

Gert Doering
        -- NetMaster
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