Subject: site-locals

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2003 21:32:42 -0800

For those of you who are voting "no" on the question of deprecation...

I just want to reiterate something that Tony Li had mentioned (and I 
hope Tony will correct me if I've lost something in the translation):

Given that if the mechanism exists we know people will develop NAT 
functionality in order to isolate enterprises from IP address changes, 
what is the benefit of going forward at all with IP version 6?  A large 
address space is useless if you only need a small one.  We already have 
that.

It is true that enterprises could choose NOT to do what I wrote, above. 
  But I think that's unlikely for the very reasons that many people who 
voted "no" have mentioned in their arguments.  People understand a 
particular paradigm, today.  It takes effort for them to learn a new 
one.  The IETF doesn't make laws, so all it takes is some amount of 
interoperability -- not even a whole lot.

Nobody "markets" such a principle from a "for profit" perspective, and 
certainly no company has a business plan that sells the principle.  That 
task is left to a few of us religious zealots.

This is it, folks.  Here is an opportunity to market the end to end 
principle by not codifying the easy out that breaks it.  Let's make a 
clean case for doing things right.  We can relax that (admittedly) 
strident view later, but coming out the gate, remember the effort 
required for administrators to use site-locals as far thinking people 
like Tony Hain have envisioned.

Eliot

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From: "Jim Fleming" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 23:49:56 -0600

From: "Eliot Lear" <[email-masked]>
"...what is the benefit of going forward at all with IP version 6..."  ???
=====

IPv6 is a never-ending research project that keeps people busy while real protocol work is done elsewhere.

Jim Fleming
http://www.IPv8.info

---

From: "Nick 'Sharkey' Moore" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 18:49:35 +1000

> For those of you who are voting "no" on the question of deprecation...

*waves*

> functionality in order to isolate enterprises from IP address changes, 

I would question your assumptions: 
a) That the existence of site locals will cause people to use NAT
b) That the deprecation of site locals will prevent people from
	using NAT.

> what is the benefit of going forward at all with IP version 6?

A very large, very flexible address space, and a protocol which
allows much greater flexibility than IPv4 for, for example, Mobility.

-----N
-- 
Nick 'Sharkey' Moore			<[email-masked]>
Research Fellow, CTIE			Tel: +61 3 9905 3707
Monash University,  Australia		Fax: +61 3 9905 5358
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From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2003 08:48:19 -0800

Nick,

> b) That the deprecation of site locals will prevent people from

I think we have to turn this around- I view NATs as a bad thing for all 
the reasons you've heard time and time again (so I won't repeat them). 
To get rid of them, it is this group's responsibility to put forth a 
vision of how we can have a functional world without them.  We need to 
answer the real concerns people have raised as they've voted "no".  If 
this group doesn't do it, I can guarantee you that NATs *will* exist and 
be forever ensconced in the architecture.

> allows much greater flexibility than IPv4 for, for example, Mobility.

But with NATs I don't need a large address space.  I simply have address 
spaces.  That will be the operating model I must code to.  While it is 
true that IPv6 will provide a nice advance in Mobility, I'm not sure 
it's worth the effort or the pain, and I doubt many enterprises will 
think so either.

So, if you've voted "no", ask yourselves whether you're voting "no" to 
IPv6 with the same two letters.

Regards,

Eliot

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From: "Nick 'Sharkey' Moore" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 08:13:14 +1000

> the reasons you've heard time and time again (so I won't repeat them). 

Great!  So do I!  NAT is basically a workaround for an IPv4 problem,
and I think we can all agree that it are basically a pain, and not
useful in and end-to-end IPv6 world!  I think we should make it
unnecessary!

I'm questioning the _connection_ between _SLAs_ and _NAT_.

a) I don't think having SLAs will cause people to use NAT, because
	it will be so much easier not to if your ISP gives you a /64
	rather than a single IPv4 address.

b) I don't think not having SLAs will prevent people using NAT
	if they, for some perverse reason, decide they want to.

you don't have to agree with me.  I'm just explaining my 'NO' vote.

-----N
-- 
Nick 'Sharkey' Moore  <[email-masked]>  <http://zoic.org/sharkey>