Subject: [babel] Alissa Cooper's No Objection on draft-ietf-babel-applicability-07: (with COMMENT)

From: Alissa Cooper via Datatracker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2019 08:22:53 -0700

Alissa Cooper has entered the following ballot position for
draft-ietf-babel-applicability-07: No Objection

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COMMENT:
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Thanks for writing this.

I find the use of "we" and "our" odd for a consensus document. I think the
document would be improved if these used the document itself as the subject
(e.g., "this document describes" instead of "we describe").

I think the claims made in the bulleted list at the end of Section 2.2 need
citations.

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From: Juliusz Chroboczek <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2019 17:54:13 +0200

Dear Alissa,

Thanks for your review.

> (e.g., "this document describes" instead of "we describe").

Agreed.  Fixed in -08.

> I think the claims made in the bulleted list at the end of Section 2.2 need

I agree, but I won't do it.  Please let me explain.

The fact that Babel has the claimed properties has been proved, but
I haven't published the proof yet.  (The proof has been reviewed by
a competent specialist of the area, who concluded "that looks like a proof
to me".  Which, knowing the individual, I consider as high praise indeed.)

As for the fact that realistic networks have the required properties --
that's something that, to the best of my knowledge, hasn't been studied
much.  The best source IMHO is Griffin and Sobrinho (already cited as
[METAROUTING] in this draft), but it's mostly about properties of BGP
networks, and therefore doesn't directly apply to the kind of networks
considered in this document.

So there's not much I can do at this time.  If you know otherwise, please
let me know.

-- Juliusz

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From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2019 12:44:33 -0400

Hi Juliusz,

> On Aug 5, 2019, at 11:54 AM, Juliusz Chroboczek <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Dear Alissa,
> 
> Thanks for your review.
> 

In that case I think not making the claims is a better option. The one about bugs seems particularly problematic — with my layperson’s understanding of this protocol, it seems as though if new developers start looking to implement this it would be very hard to predict how often any particular bug that any implementer might introduce would interfere with the protocol operation. If there isn’t some evidence to back this up it seems wiser not to claim it.

Thanks,
Alissa

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From: Juliusz Chroboczek <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2019 19:00:41 +0200

> In that case I think not making the claims is a better option.  The one
> about bugs seems particularly problematic

As far as bug resistence is concerned -- I agree.  This has been weakened
in -08 at the prompting of Éric Vyncke, please let me know if you with me
to weaken it further.

As far as the other two properties are concerned (unusual networks and
unusual metrics), I must most humbly disagree.  There is a fair body of
circumstantial evidence that favours these claims, such as the references
[DELAY-BASED], [REAL-WORLD] and [BRIDGING-LAYERS] of this document, as
well as a number of experiments [1,2] that I don't feel comfortable citing
at the current time.

[1] http://people.ac.upc.edu/leandro/pubs/eomrpfwcn.pdf
[2] https://www.irif.fr/~jch/software/babel/battlemeshv10.html

Sorry for that.

-- Juliusz

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From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 2019 11:00:04 -0400

Hi Juliusz,

> On Aug 5, 2019, at 1:00 PM, Juliusz Chroboczek <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

Mirja’s suggested formulation is an improvement I think.

> [DELAY-BASED], [REAL-WORLD] and [BRIDGING-LAYERS]

Could you add these citations in the appropriate places in the bulleted list of claims?

Thanks,
Alissa

> of this document, as

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From: Juliusz Chroboczek <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2019 17:30:25 +0200

> Mirja’s suggested formulation is an improvement I think.

Done.

> Could you add these citations in the appropriate places in the bulleted

I've added a forward ref to Section 3 where these papers are duly cited.

-- Juliusz