Subject: Re: (NAT) Minutes from meeting in Chicago

From: Steve Deering <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 16:47:34 -0700

At 10:41 PM -0700 9/6/98, Matt Holdrege wrote:
> NAT WG meeting minutes - 42nd IETF - Chicago, IL - August 26, 1998
> ...
> Tony Hain - "Architectural Implications of NAT"
>    <draft-iab-nat-implications-01.txt>
>
>    This is still an anti-NAT document, to discourage people from
>    randomly using NAT to serve all their needs.

No, it's not an anti-NAT document (much to my disappointment :-)).  It's an
attempt at a balanced evaluation of the architectural implications of NAT.
Sure, the document can be (and will be) improved, but to dismiss attempts to
identify problems, shortcomings, and domains of applicability of NAT
as being "anti-NAT" and out-of-scope would seem to be in conflict with the
purpose of this working group.  This is not supposed to be the NAT
marketing department.

Steve

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From: [email-masked] (Pyda Srisuresh)
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 17:17:55 -0700 (PDT)

> purpose of this working group.  This is not supposed to be the NAT

Steve,

These are not comments made by the Minutes taker or the editors of 
the minutes.  I believe, this was the remark made by Tony. We are 
just reporting the minutes. Hope you understand.

cheers,
suresh
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From: Steve Deering <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 17:43:17 -0700

> just reporting the minutes. Hope you understand.

Suresh,

I did assume that the comments were those of the folks producing the minutes,
since it was at odds with what I knew to be Tony's view.  Sorry about that.
I'm glad to see that Tony has now cleared it up, and that the minutes will
be revised.  Thanks.

Steve

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From: Jim Bound IPv6 Technical Leader UNIX Engineering Internet Group <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 10:21:45 -0400

Suresh,

>just reporting the minutes. Hope you understand.

It would be good then to add that caveat to any comments that exposes an
extreme negative tone that is clearly not in line with the chairs
objectives of this working group.  Then it would be read as such and
responses to it would be subdued to some degree.

Whether we like it or not the NAT group/discussion/philosophy/technical
beliefs is much like what we are seeing in the U.S. capital hill right
now in D.C. where clear intense opposing views on whether morality is
relative to the judgement of ones job productivity (ergo the right vs
the left, demos vs the repubs, christians vs the atheists).  All have a
right to speak and debate but at times its hard to separate the chaff
from the wheat in the discussion as to what part is relative to the U.S.
constitution and what the "framers" intended.  Likewise NAT needs to
always make sure that part of the goal here is to define where NAT is
not an ideal or optimal solution for the Internet or Intranets.  When
that is a result certain factions get emotional and make comments that
as you say is not really supported by your objectives in this working
group.  So adding caveats to such comments in things like minutes or
working drafts that go astray is a really good idea.  Kind of how the
RFC editor makes sure vendors don't publish info RFCs and then tout them
as Internet Standards.

my .02 cents,
/jim

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From: [email-masked] (Pyda Srisuresh)
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 12:03:43 -0700 (PDT)

> responses to it would be subdued to some degree.
<... snip>

Jim, 

These are just the minutes of the meeting. Errors and caveats do
happen. We did the best we could in drafting the minutes. And, we 
appreciate corrections from Tony and Vern (a couple of days back).
We will post an updated version soon. 

In the future, I expect people would read the minutes to be what 
they are - "meeting minutes" and not interpret them as views of 
the notes taker or editors or WG chairs. In case of errors,
corrections are definitely apprecitaed. Thanks.

cheers,
suresh
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