Subject: Re: ADMIN: Final warning to John Stanley

From: John Stanley <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 11:19:39 -0700 (PDT)

Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>NOTE: I don't have much hope of John's behaviour to change based on this 
>note.

Of course not. My "behaviour" isn't out of the norm for this group. My 
behaviour doesn't seem out of line with your own.

>Unlike John, I will reply to the administrative portion, dealing with 
>behaviour, separately from the technical portion, dealing with the actual 
>proposal and objections to it.

I see no separate message dealing with the technical issues. Unlike the 
Chair, I will deal with the technical issues. And if you object to that 
phrasing, sir, then I'll point you to the previous paragraph containing 
similar language from your own keyboard.

>You have proposed this solution. I, and others, have observed that the 
>same debate on how to format an IPv6 address has been had in multiple 
>other fora, including in URIs, and the conclusion has always been to stick 
>with standard notation.

This is not "multiple other fora", this is USEFOR, and we have a known 
incompatibility issue with using colon-oriented notation for IPv6. You 
have admitted in your own words that there is an interoperability problem 
caused by this. I don't care what problems email or mime or html does NOT 
have with IPv6 encodings, I'm here to talk about USENET and the problems 
it has with this encoding. In this group.

I'm certain there have been long discussions about message ids in multiple 
other fora, as well. I do not see you chiding those here for not 
responding in other fora when we debated the specifics of news message id 
problems here. 

> You have not replied to this.

Of course I have not replied to debates in multiple other fora, since I do 
not participate in those fora nor am I particularly interested in those 
fora. I have no idea why you think I ought to have replied to debates in 
other fora or why it matters here. 

>The group has discussed the size of the problem (dead:beef:cafe) caused by 
>using standard IPv6 notation, and my reading of the consensus (without an 
>explicit poll for it) is that the group does not regard the problem as a 
>big enough problem to worry about.

You have called it an interoperability issue. That makes it a problem
worth worrying about. Since the solution is trivial, there is no reason
not to implement it. It is ridiculous to write a standard that says 
"here's how to do this and we know it causes interoperability issues, but 
we don't care enough to solve it, even though we could."

>You have not replied to this by anything I can see but "I disagree", and 
>formulations that I interpret as "it's obvious that I'm right".

You are wrong. I've dealt with the objections as they were raised, more 
than once. How you misinterpret things is your issue, not mine.

> Yes. And that choice is a given that we base the next steps on.

No, sir, choices are NOT givens. It is simply insulting to the 
participants of a discussion to come here and say that the result of the 
discussion is a given. "Givens" are the starting points for discussion; 
they are the things that are so obvious that they are assumed to be 
true or are so basic that you have to assume them to be true to 
begin. Allowing IP literals in a path-identity is neither. There are 
technical arguments for both sides.

You are telling the opponents that their opinion is so patently wrong that
it wasn't worth debating. The result is a "given". That's insulting, but I
don't expect you'll censure yourself for doing it.

>You've made proposals. You've had objections raised to them. You've not 
>responded, 

You are wrong. I've dealt with the objections as they were raised, and 
then again to summarize how they were dealt with.

> But your failure to respond to criticism, 

As the Chair of this group, I expect you to have read the discussions 
prior to making statements of this kind. I certainly expect you to read 
any message which you respond to. For example, from this very message:

>Yes, we CAN define how an IPv6 address is encoded into a Path header. It 
>is within our jurisdiction. No, this is NOT something that thousands of 
>admins around the planet will have to enter by hand every day, it's 
>entered automatically by software that can easily produce the required 
>output. When it appears as a diagnostic thingy, it will be SOFTWARE that 
>enters it there, not a human, and SOFTWARE can easily convert an IPv6 
>address into 32 hexadecimal characters. 

That is a DIRECT response to the objections that were raised. First 
that we have to do it the way some other RFC says, and second, that it 
would be a burden to make thousands of admins around the net type in 
unencoded IPv6 literals. This is not the first time I've said this.
In fact, the first two sentences are a pre-emptive response to your
"multiple other fora have decided..." objection. 

Do you have examples of other objections that were raised but not 
answered? If you are going to make the claim, and use it to justify a 
censure, you better have documentary proof. Well, sorry, I expect you to 
have proof, but this is USEFOR after all...

Since you ignored it the first time around, here are just some of the 
responses you claim do not exist:

On August 23:

"Charles Lindsey" <chl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>There is a standard notation for writing both IPv4- and IPv6-addresses,
>and the world will not thank us for not using them

Objection: we won't be 'thanked' for not using the 'standard'. Response:

]There is a standard for what abuse reporting address must be valid, but
]you felt we could change that. There is a standard for the syntax of a
]message id, but we feel we can change that.

]We have a known incompatibility with a specific way of representing an 
]IPv6 address (IPv4 is irrelevant to this discussion). Like I said, there 
]is no immutable rule that says we must do it the same way. I won't waste 
]my time looking it up, but I expect that the "standard" in question does 
]not use the RFC2119 mandates that would make the use anything more than a 
]suggestion.

On July 6:

"Charles Lindsey" <chl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>I don't think the world out there is going to accept any encoding of IPv6
>addresses other than the one currently in widespread use (as defined in
>RFC 3986 as well as lots of other places).

Objection: "they won't accept". Response:

]Of course they will "accept it". Why wouldn't they? It's not like they 
]have to type the thing in every time they post an article.

Do we write standards hoping they will be accepted, or expecting them to 
be? What 'acceptance' does a news admin have to exhibit if it is his 
software that is doing something for him? And since "the world" isn't 
involved in this to start with, the objection is moot. Things I've said 
before.

On July 8:

Bruce Lilly <blilly@xxxxxxxxx>:

>That seems OK; I'm wary of "elide all colons" because dead::beef:cafe
>and dead:beef::cafe mean different things in IPv6-ese.

Objection: just eliding colons won't work. ("Just eliding colons" isn't 
the proposal.) Response:

]You cannot "elide all colons" until after you have undone the "double 
]colon abbreviation" step for IPv6, because, as you point out, the double 
]colons means something different than the single colon.

]And once you have elided them, there is no reason to put something else in 
]their place. Simply remove the colons. Problem solved. There are no 32 
]character UUCP names to conflict with.

And now, as for this being a problem not worth solving, I'll quote you,
on Jun 24.

Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>I think my point was that given that the colons in IPv6 literals are known 
>to cause problems, and so far, no prohibition or warning is in the text, 
>the standards writers (that's us) haven't exhibited good judgment.....

Warning people that we have left them an interoperability issue they can 
be bitten by is failure to exhibit good judgement on our part.

---

From: Dan Schlitt <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 16:46:19 -0400

Over more years of observation of this working group than I care to
count I have come to a conclusion about a feature of it. Considering the
subject of the working group it probably could have been expected.

Some participants, past and present, treat the mailinglist as if it were
some usenet newsgroup. Discussions go on until those participating in
the discussion get tired and then they go on to some other topic, often
a recycled version of a previous endless discussion.

A working group mailing list is not a newsgroup. It has a task and the
intention to finish that task. Discussions need to lead to conclusions.
Perfection is not a goal; a working solution is the goal. Contributioins
to the mailinglist which do not move the group closer to the goal are
not all that helpful.

This working group has gone on far too long. It needs to conclude one
way or another. The chairs are trying hard to have a conclusion that
results in some RFCs. That is not the only conclusion to the working
group that is possible.

I would like to see the documents advance because a standard that
defines more or less current practice would be a "good thing." Not a
perfect standard but one that is "good enough."

/dan

-- 

Dan Schlitt
[email-masked]

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 01:20:25 +0200

> behaviour doesn't seem out of line with your own.

I think the point I was trying to make has been amply demonstrated.

You will be welcome to post to the list again in two weeks, on September 29.

Until then, your posting rights have been removed.

                       Harald