Subject: [rbridge] I completely misunderstood what "shared VLAN learning" was

From: Radia.Perlman at sun.com (Radia Perlman)
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 23:02:33 -0700

I took the words "shared VLAN learning" and came up with a concept
that could be described by those words. But that's not what IEEE 802 
means by those words.

Anyway, in my next email to the list, I will describe my current 
understanding of what it is, and how we can support
it with TRILL. If indeed people are deploying this feature in layer 2, I 
think TRILL should support it.

Anyway, it took a really long time for Dinesh to explain to me what 
shared 802-style VLAN learning actually is,
and I'm still not totally sure I understand it.
Especially since when I found other 802 types in the hallways during 
IETF to ask detailed questions, I got
inconsistent answers.  And especially because I still don't understand 
how a few things actually would
work.

And now a plea -- I'm not the only one that has been confused. I suspect 
a lot of people just gave
up on trying to understand the issue. If you don't understand an issue, 
it's OK to ask someone to
explain it.

And please -- the more IEEE 802 literate people on the mailing list
should try to make fewer assumptions about what
people on this mailing understand about 802 arcana. So for instance, 
most people (including me) didn't
know what a "FID" was. It's common for email threads to be 
incomprehensible because people really
are making different assumptions, and not understanding each other.

It's always a good idea to explain everything carefully, with limited 
jargon, to ensure that everyone is
talking about the same thing. Which we weren't, in the case of the 
"shared VLAN learning" thread.

Anyway, I'm sure you're all looking forward to my next message where the 
exciting concept of
"shared VLAN learning" will be revealed.

Radia