Subject: [Idr] allocation policy for BGP-LS registries

From: "John G. Scudder" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2017 18:41:49 +0300

Hi All,

You may have noticed that I just sent out a few emails scolding authors for squatting on code points in the "BGP-LS Node Descriptor, Link Descriptor, Prefix Descriptor, and Attribute TLVs" registry. This is one of the things I least enjoy doing.

I notice that all of the BGP-LS registries have the "Specification Required" policy. Experience shows this tends to invite such behavior. I further notice that three of these registries are for 16-bit spaces (BGP-LS Protocol-IDs is an 8-bit space).

I'd like to invite discussion about whether the WG thinks we should convert the three 16-bit registries to First Come First Served (FCFS). 

For those unfamiliar with the respective allocation policies, all the gory details are in RFC 5226, but for our purposes "Specification Required" is almost the same as requiring an RFC in order for the code point to be issued. By contrast, FCFS allows anyone to get a code point at any time with minimum effort. While there are some drawbacks to FCFS, the major advantage is that there is minimum impediment to coordinating implementations in an organized and disciplined way.

Hannes and Adrian in the cc because they're the "designated experts" on those registries.

If the WG wants to make this change, someone would need to write a draft to do so. Such drafts can be very short, see for example https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7803 (this is just the first one I came across). It would be great to see someone volunteer for this work. (Perhaps someone who has been eager to take the shortcut of "suggesting" code points, hint hint?)

Thanks,

--John

---

From: "Acee Lindem (acee)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2017 17:12:01 +0000

Hi John, et al, 

I think we have contradicting goals here of encouraging implementations
and discouraging suggestion of IANA code points. I would propose that we
“lower the bar” for early allocation and allow it as soon as a document is
accepted by the WG. Also, I would remove the AD from obstructing the
allocation but realize this may be a controversial opinion.

Thanks,
Acee 

On 7/15/17, 11:41 AM, "Idr on behalf of John G. Scudder"
<[email-masked] on behalf of [email-masked]> wrote:

>Hi All,
>
>You may have noticed that I just sent out a few emails scolding authors
>for squatting on code points in the "BGP-LS Node Descriptor, Link
>Descriptor, Prefix Descriptor, and Attribute TLVs" registry. This is one
>of the things I least enjoy doing.
>
>I notice that all of the BGP-LS registries have the "Specification
>Required" policy. Experience shows this tends to invite such behavior. I
>further notice that three of these registries are for 16-bit spaces
>(BGP-LS Protocol-IDs is an 8-bit space).
>
>I'd like to invite discussion about whether the WG thinks we should
>convert the three 16-bit registries to First Come First Served (FCFS).
>
>For those unfamiliar with the respective allocation policies, all the
>gory details are in RFC 5226, but for our purposes "Specification
>Required" is almost the same as requiring an RFC in order for the code
>point to be issued. By contrast, FCFS allows anyone to get a code point
>at any time with minimum effort. While there are some drawbacks to FCFS,
>the major advantage is that there is minimum impediment to coordinating
>implementations in an organized and disciplined way.
>
>If the WG wants to make this change, someone would need to write a draft
>to do so. Such drafts can be very short, see for example
>https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7803 (this is just the first one I came
>across). It would be great to see someone volunteer for this work.
>(Perhaps someone who has been eager to take the shortcut of "suggesting"
>code points, hint hint?)
>
>Thanks,
>
>--John
>_______________________________________________
>Idr mailing list
>[email-masked]
>https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/idr

---

From: "John G. Scudder" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2017 21:15:46 +0300

Hi Acee,

> On Jul 15, 2017, at 8:12 PM, Acee Lindem (acee) <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

We as the IDR WG don't have the latitude to rewrite RFC 7120. If you want to change the allocation rules, I encourage you to submit a 7120bis. 

Do you see a problem with changing the allocation policy as I previously suggested? That is something we do have change control over.

--John

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2017 19:51:53 +0100

Personally, I'm old grouch!

Early assignment is easy and I fail to see why an I-D would squat (and risk
implementations clashing over code points) when early allocation is not much
harder than FCFS.

Certainly, by the time a document is a WG document we should have a really good
idea about whether it is stable enough to get a code point on early allocation.

Before a document is a WG document it seems to me that it is little more than a
punt an burning codepoints (even FCFS from a large registry) seems a poor idea
because as (if) the document matures the meaning will change and then we have to
ask whether the code point applies to the early version or the more mature
version.

A

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John G. Scudder [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: 15 July 2017 16:42
> To: [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: allocation policy for BGP-LS registries
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> You may have noticed that I just sent out a few emails scolding authors for
> squatting on code points in the "BGP-LS Node Descriptor, Link Descriptor,
Prefix
> Descriptor, and Attribute TLVs" registry. This is one of the things I least
enjoy
> doing.
> 
> I notice that all of the BGP-LS registries have the "Specification Required"
policy.
> Experience shows this tends to invite such behavior. I further notice that
three of
> these registries are for 16-bit spaces (BGP-LS Protocol-IDs is an 8-bit
space).
> 
> I'd like to invite discussion about whether the WG thinks we should convert
the
> three 16-bit registries to First Come First Served (FCFS).
> 
> For those unfamiliar with the respective allocation policies, all the gory
details are
> in RFC 5226, but for our purposes "Specification Required" is almost the same
as
> requiring an RFC in order for the code point to be issued. By contrast, FCFS
allows
> anyone to get a code point at any time with minimum effort. While there are
> some drawbacks to FCFS, the major advantage is that there is minimum
> impediment to coordinating implementations in an organized and disciplined
> way.
> 
> If the WG wants to make this change, someone would need to write a draft to do
> so. Such drafts can be very short, see for example
across). It
> would be great to see someone volunteer for this work. (Perhaps someone who
> has been eager to take the shortcut of "suggesting" code points, hint hint?)
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> --John=

---

From: "John G. Scudder" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2017 22:21:18 +0300

One more thing:

> Also, I would remove the AD from obstructing the

FWIW, I don't recall cases of the AD "obstructing the allocation" for early allocations IDR has requested. I just checked our most recent request, and the turnaround between sending the request to Alvaro and him approving was 24 minutes.

So apart from the fact IDR isn't the forum to rewrite RFC 7120, I also question whether this particular aspect needs fixing.

--John

---

From: Robert Raszuk <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2017 21:35:05 +0200

Hi Adrian,

When someone is prototyping new idea way before his new extension is a WG
document he has two choices:

*A* Squat a code point and do not tell any one.

*B* Squat a code point and *publish it* such that others doing other
prototypes will not take the same values.

What we have today as "early allocations" is way past point of time where a
code gets written. And as it is normal that due to IETF not being that
quick new ideas leak into products (read vendor's marketing advantage or
enterprise own add-on) and we have an "Oooops effect" few months or years
later.

So IMHO the only effective way to avoid the mess (in parallel/orthogonal to
current early allocation procedure) is an IDR wiki page where those who
want could just log-in and put their "temporarily borrowed" code points for
their prototypes bearing in mind that later IANA could honor it or not.

Regards,
R.

On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 8:51 PM, Adrian Farrel <[email-masked]> wrote:

> for
> Required"
> convert
> gory
> > Hannes and Adrian in the cc because they're the "designated experts" on
> those
> > registries.
> >
> to do

---

From: "John G. Scudder" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2017 22:38:53 +0300

On Jul 15, 2017, at 10:35 PM, Robert Raszuk <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> So IMHO the only effective way to avoid the mess (in parallel/orthogonal to current early allocation procedure) is an IDR wiki page where those who want could just log-in and put their "temporarily borrowed" code points for their prototypes bearing in mind that later IANA could honor it or not. 

How would this be different from FCFS allocation by IANA?

--John

---

From: Robert Raszuk <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2017 21:50:35 +0200

John,

For one IANA requires some document to do any allocation isn't it ? When
you come up with an idea and are coding it there is no IETF draft for it
for a long time.

Second where in IANA registers there if FCFS space for say new attribute
type, bgp error codes & sub-codes?

Thx,
R.

On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 9:38 PM, John G. Scudder <[email-masked]> wrote:

> So IMHO the only effective way to avoid the mess (in parallel/orthogonal
> to current early allocation procedure) is an IDR wiki page where those who

---

From: "John G. Scudder" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2017 23:08:48 +0300

On Jul 15, 2017, at 10:50 PM, Robert Raszuk <[email-masked]> wrote:
> For one IANA requires some document to do any allocation isn't it ?

No. I've pasted the FCFS policy from RFC 5226 at the end. ("Brief description" means just that, a one-liner.)

> Second where in IANA registers there if FCFS space for say new attribute type, bgp error codes & sub-codes?

If the WG wants the allocation policy for any of these (or a sub-range of any of them) to be FCFS, we can make it so, just like I suggested in my message at the beginning of this thread. 

IMO if we don't like the allocation policy of a given registry, we should change it, not create a workaround. If we don't have consensus to change the allocation policy, then a workaround (that has the same effect as changing the policy) would also seem to be inappropriate.

--John

From RFC 5226:

      First Come First Served - Assignments are made to anyone on a
            first come, first served basis.  There is no substantive
            review of the request, other than to ensure that it is
            well-formed and doesn't duplicate an existing assignment.
            However, requests must include a minimal amount of clerical
            information, such as a point of contact (including an email
            address) and a brief description of how the value will be
            used.  Additional information specific to the type of value
            requested may also need to be provided, as defined by the
            namespace.  For numbers, the exact value is generally
            assigned by IANA; with names, specific text strings can
            usually be requested.

---

From: "Acee Lindem (acee)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2017 21:03:50 +0000

On 7/15/17, 3:21 PM, "John G. Scudder" <[email-masked]> wrote:

>FWIW, I don't recall cases of the AD "obstructing the allocation" for
>early allocations IDR has requested. I just checked our most recent
>request, and the turnaround between sending the request to Alvaro and him
>approving was 24 minutes.
>
>So apart from the fact IDR isn't the forum to rewrite RFC 7120, I also
>question whether this particular aspect needs fixing.

It wasn’t in IDR. However, I’m aware of push-back on the grounds an
accepted WG document would not be published in 1 year (the term of early
allocations). I’d like to remove this discretion.

Thanks,
Acee

---

From: "Acee Lindem (acee)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2017 21:08:45 +0000

Hi John, 

Once a draft is accepted as a WG document, if we are not able to “suggest”
values as we had in the past, we are going to have to be much more
diligent and persistent about requesting early allocation.

Thanks,
Acee 

On 7/15/17, 2:15 PM, "John G. Scudder" <[email-masked]> wrote:

>We as the IDR WG don't have the latitude to rewrite RFC 7120. If you want
>to change the allocation rules, I encourage you to submit a 7120bis.
>
>Do you see a problem with changing the allocation policy as I previously
>suggested? That is something we do have change control over.
>
>--John

---

From: "Acee Lindem (acee)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2017 21:08:48 +0000

>idea about whether it is stable enough to get a code point on early

Agreed and all I’m suggesting is that WG acceptance be criteria enough for
early allocation. 

>ask whether the code point applies to the early version or the more mature

Well, the best way to reach stability is through implementation. However,
I agree that this is the process today.

Thanks,
Acee

---

From: Jeffrey Haas <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2017 14:39:41 -0400

John,

Answering your original question:

> I'd like to invite discussion about whether the WG thinks we should convert the three 16-bit registries to First Come First Served (FCFS). 

In keeping with prior discussions on the topic, I think these three
registries should be converted to FCFS.

One thing this thread has shown yet again is that long time participants are
confused over how easy it is to get a FCFS code point.  Or even an early
allocation for that matter.

Really, whatever it takes to stop the foolishness.  Including some XML2RFC
markup that says "I'm squatting on this code point" that lets the tools
actually pick it up.

-- Jeff