Subject: [p2p-sip] Requirements Explosion (was: Evaluating SIPimplemen tations)

From: royrr at us.saic.com (Roy, Radhika R.)
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 15:09:51 -0500

Hi, Folks:

I would say that it is not an elephant in the room. In fact, if you include
all SIP RFCs, it only exemplifies some additional aspects of SIP RFC 3261.
To summarize those in relation to p2p-SIP works, there is not much in
addition to the base RFC 3261. 

While we go on working on p2p-SIP, it will not only use all RFCs of SIP, we
will also scan all of the information of p2p works that are being
progressing independent of SIP in addition to DNS, IPv6, routing,
AAA/DIAMETER, Security, Mobile IP4/IPv6, mobile routers/networks (NEMO),
MANET, and others.

What we will do eventually is to scan all the relevant points of those
on-going works for p2p-SIP without blindly reading all of the pages of all
documents. Well there may be some lapses as we mover forward as it happens
for all cases, we do need to face the challenge. Otherwise, our works will
be obsolete and will not meet the needs with the test of time.

Who will do these challenging works? The answer is: It is all of us
together.

Best regards,

Radhika

-----Original Message-----
From: p2p-sip-bounces at cs.columbia.edu
[mailto:p2p-sip-bounces at cs.columbia.edu
<mailto:p2p-sip-bounces at cs.columbia.edu> ] On Behalf Of David Barrett
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 2:51 PM
To: henry at pulver.com
Cc: 'Nils Ohlmeier'; 'Alan Johnston'; 'Robert Sparks';
p2p-sip at cs.columbia.edu; Kai.Vehmanen at nokia.com
Subject: Re: [p2p-sip] Requirements Explosion (was: Evaluating
SIPimplementations)

Henry Sinnreich wrote:

> Benny Prijono wrote:

>>Your list with 50+ RFCs looks absolutely horrifying!

> Unfortunately I have to agree with you, but how can we dismiss all this
work

> performed in the IETF? What would we say to the authors?

Is it just me or is this the elephant in the room that nobody discusses?

For example, SIP alone is documented in over *30 different RFCs* 

according to Henry's list, and that's just *one* protocol.  To do 

anything meaningful you also need SDP, STUN, TURN, ICE, RTP, RTCP, etc, 

etc.  Every one of these requires its own parsers, and its own state 

machines.  Given this, just building a reasonably compliant "Hello 

world!" VoIP app is an incredible undertaking.

Furthermore, while a totally vanilla VoIP app can be simplified with 

off-the-shelf libraries, bending the RFCs in ways the authors didn't 

intend (such as P2P-SIP) is a Herculean effort because it's not just one 

library that needs tweaking, but many -- each with its own maintainer, 

own build process, own CVS repository, update cycle, bug database, etc.

What I think would help SIP adoption more than anything is a "SIP 2.0" 

that is a distillation of everything learned up to date, re-unified into 

a single document with a single grammar, parser, and update cycle.

Personally, I would pull together the essential elements of the various 

text protocols (SIP, SDP, STUN, TURN, ICE, and some DHT-maintenance 

commands), but leave RTP and the binary protocols separate.  With this 

tighter, smaller standard, true interoperability within this minimal 

subset might have a greater chance of succeeding.

Until then, given that *nobody* understand the big picture entirely, and 

even *fewer* have the resources to build it, everyone will just do the 

best they can and we'll end up basically where we are -- with a wide 

collection of "SIP compliant" devices and services that, despite the 

best intentions of the designers, are mostly incompatible, or that only 

achieve compatibility through extreme testing and custom tweaking.

Am I a lone pessimist in this view, or would you agree?

-david

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/pipermail/p2p-sip/attachments/20060110/e45e02cc/attachment.html