Policy Statement on Address Space Allocations

Sat Jan 27 04:43:56 UTC 1996

Tony kindly responds:
> 
> We are quite certain that there ARE other ways of doing routing.  But they
> are not yet implementable.  There is a LOT of work to be done to bring a
> new routing architecture to full deployment.  It has not happened yet.

Tony, I respect you and appreciate your statement, but I have scores of
email from IETF WGs, such as your excellent group that infer time and
time again that there is only CIDR, all other proposals on the table
are not implementable.  It is nice to know that you believe in your
heart otherwise.... thank you.  Honestly, I am going to frame your
e-mail and put it up in HTML and refer to it :-)  

> You would be much better served by spending the time to refine and bring
> one of these to implementability than you will by continuing to stand up
> and say that we refuse to listen to you.  

You are correct!  Every time these CIDR problems arise I feel exactly
the same way.  It warms my heart to see you state in public
that your are "quite certain that there ARE other ways";  because
based on your last internet-draft and your refusal to address the
issue, I was beginning to wonder if bit-slinging was damaging to
neurons.  Now I feel much better knowing that one of the people
that I truly admire understands engineering principles.   
(and I truly admire what CIDR-WG is doing..... , believe me, and I
 have stated this before, CIDR is *not* the problem, the problem is
 that we have *no other alternative*)

[ ....  deleted perfectly good ideas I completely agree with .... ]

> And I further encourage you to take some time to understand the harsh
> engineering realities that we face.
> 

( this begs an answer ........ sorry not to be brief )

I understand the 'harsh realities' you face well....  the CIDR
WG is doing it's best to "keep the plane flying" which translates
to "do whatever it takes" to:  

(1)	Minimize routing table growth;
(2)	Maintain Internet growth;
(3)	Maintain a full partition-less Internet.

Since I have chosen directly and consciously not to be in the ISP
business (and for my bank account NOT to depend on Internet growth
hardwares sales, services, etc.) objectivity is less biased, IMO.
Honestly, I could care less a vendor sold another router 
or a regional put up another DS3.

I do consider, however, that the small business interests of small
ISPs are pushed to the side by the zeal for 1, 2, and 3;
and based on what I read and hear everyday, the small businesses
and start-up ISPs are finding it more difficult to 'play ball'
with the up-stream, non-portable aggregation path and the 
big national ISP polices not to allow the little guys in the NAPS.
(yes, the routing table benefit........ but the big fish swallow
 the little fish to accomplish the goal.... IMO)

These are the 'harsh realities" that, from a somewhat non-financial
position' are just as important as 1, 2, and 3.   Because I believe
the the small business paradigm you and a few others enjoy quipping
about "conspiracies".  Big businesses pushing small businesses out
of the circle is not a "conspiracy', Tony.  With all due respects,
it is just business as usual in the commercial world.  I think
that I am entitled *not* to enjoy watching small ISPs getting 
pushed aside... I put up the Linux Benchmark WWW page over a
year ago to help small ISPs understand the UNIX power they could get
for small money to support the community at my expense, BTW)

There are more "harsh realities" than meets the eye.  If the Internet
believes that 1,2 and 3 are more important than small business 
opportunity, then that's okay by me.  I have only asked that the
IETF have a clear policy stating what the "harsh realities" and
objectives are.  (why not just state it.... is it wrong to speak
the 'harsh reality'.... ?)

And, I might add, I do feel that it IS appropriate to discuss the
lack of policy and objective in this forum.  If it was not, then
I would not bring the subject up for discussion.  It is appropriate
and it needs to be addressed BEFORE issuing political drafts, RFCs,
and policy statements that are NOT supported by a document which 
defines the immediate and long term 'harsh realities' of the Internet.

If the goals are 1,2, and 3 are paramount and small business access
*must* suffer, then it is the IETFs responsibility, IMO, to state
the policy clearly and not be overtly driven by commerce.       
(if I remember correctly, the E stands for engineering not marketing:-)

Thanks for your kind reply and the opportunity to reply,

Tim

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Tim Bass                           |                                   |
| Principal Network Systems Engineer |  "... images are the literature   |
| The Silk Road Group, Ltd.          |                 of the layman."   |
|                                    |                                   |
| http://www.silkroad.com/           |                     Umberto Eco   |
|                                    |				         |
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