Anybody can participate in the IETF (Was: Why is IPv6 broken?)

Mon Jul 11 18:36:10 UTC 2011

On 7/10/11 6:29 PM, Randy Bush wrote:
>> The IETF is run by volunteers. They volunteer because they find
>> designing protocols to be fun. For the most part, operators are not
>> entertained by designing network protocols. So, for the most part they
>> don't partiticpate.
>
> Randy Bush, "Editorial zone: Into the Future with the Internet Vendor
> Task Force: a very curmudgeonly view, or testing spaghetti," ACM SIGCOMM
> Computer Communication Review Volume 35 Issue 5, October 2005.
> http://archive.psg.com/051000.ccr-ivtf.html
>
I agree with Randy.  Well, that's no surprise, I usually agree with
Randy.  But I didn't know/remember that he'd managed to get his rant
published!  Good work....

But the problem has been pretty apparent since circa 1991.  I remember
calls for an Internet Operator's Task Force (IOTF) to parallel IETF
sometime in '92 or '93.

Folks have asked me from time to time why I stopped participating in the
IETF a decade or so ago.  My usual tongue-in-cheek reply is, "it's more
important to use the protocols we already have before we build more."
(CF. nukes.)

IPv6 was certainly a part of it (as was security).  As I remind folks
from time to time, I'm the guy that originally registered v6 with IANA.
But PIPE->SIP->SIPP was a much simpler, shorter, cleaner extension using
64-bit addresses.  My proposal used the upper 32-bits extending the then
16-bit BGP ASN, making addresses match topology, shrinking the routing
tables....

Although I *do* find designing protocols to be fun, these days I only
post Experimental drafts.  There are committees (dysfunctional "working
groups") where the chair cannot get his own drafts through the process
in under 4 years.  It took about 7 years to publish the group
negotiation extension to SSH, many years after it was shipping.

It's no wonder that operators don't want to participate.