Subject: Re: breaking the IP model (or not)

From: Greg Skinner <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2000 19:39:40 -0700 (PDT)

Keith Moore <[email-masked]> wrote:

> there's something odd to my ear about people needing to
> *be presented* with better alternatives than doing harm to the
> architecture as opposed to those people *developing* better alternatives.

With my scientist/engineer hat on, I like to develop architecturally
pure solutions.  They tend to have fewer awkward cases.  The code
evolves straightforwardly from the design.  The boundary conditions are
easier to test.

With my pragmatist hat on, I realize I occasionally need to do things
that will enable me to pay the bills. :(

> I suspect there's something about the current economic climate that
> favors development of quick fixes over development of sane ones.
> but the apparent shortsightedness still bothers me.

My general (cynical) opinion of NAT and other proxy technology is that
the marketplace spoke louder than the voices of the architectural
purists.  (No offense intended.)  However, given recent changes in the
economic climate, perhaps things will head in the opposite direction.

--gregbo, enjoying this thread

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From: campbell <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2000 23:54:51 -0400

> economic climate, perhaps things will head in the opposite direction.

Looks like the IPv6.com IPO is on hold until the market picks up .....

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From: Markku Savela <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2000 13:33:43 +0300 (EET DST)

> From: Greg Skinner <[email-masked]>

> economic climate, perhaps things will head in the opposite direction.

NAT could also be tempting for some ISPs, becuase that way they will
have captive clients. Anything not especially allowed by the NAT
boxes, must be separately orderd from the ISP (for example, client
cannot send directly mail out to destination based on MX records, they
have to buy mail relaying from ISP).

But, I guess the "marketplace" is the ISP's, not the individual
clients, who don't know what they might miss.