Subject: [Idr] Éric Vyncke's Abstain on draft-ietf-idr-bgp-ext-com-registry-04: (with COMMENT)

From: Éric Vyncke via Datatracker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2021 02:00:32 -0800

Éric Vyncke has entered the following ballot position for
draft-ietf-idr-bgp-ext-com-registry-04: Abstain

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COMMENT:
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Thank you for the work put into this document, which probably addresses
incoherent decision made in the past. So, thank you Christoph and IDR WG for
fixing it.

Please find below some non-blocking COMMENT points (but replies would be
appreciated even if only for my own education).

Special thanks to Susan Hares for the shepherd's write-up including the section
about the WG consensus.

While I am not aware of the history about the use of those "experimental" code
points and while I am aware that changing the code points in running code is an
impossible endeavour, I wonder how those code points were used in production
networks (my guess) while keeping the status of 'experimental'. I.e., the code
points 0x81 and 0x82 are noted as 'experimental' but RFC 8955 is standard
track. I am balloting ABSTAIN as I miss the history.

***Bottom line for IANA/IESG: what can we learn from this apparent "mess" (I am
afraid that my limited English vocabulary is unable to find a more positive
word)?***

Regards,

-éric

In "The primary use for those types and sub-type registries is non
experimental" should a "now" be inserted before the "non" ?

I also wonder why "0x80-0x82 | First Come First Served" since this document
confirms the allocation ? What am I missing here ?

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From: Jeffrey Haas <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2021 08:10:02 -0500

Éric,

> track. I am balloting ABSTAIN as I miss the history.

You have all of the relevant history.

Once a code point is well deployed in a protocol with a scope like BGP, it's
basically a done thing.  Even if there was a decision to try to move to new
code points out of that range to a standards track allocation, there would
be deployed implementations using the existing code points.  A migration
strategy would be required, and would likely not go well.

A related example of where this has failed in prior BGP history are in BGP
capabilities:
https://www.iana.org/assignments/capability-codes/capability-codes.xhtml

See capabilities 128-131.  Many implementations find themselves having to
support the old code points as well as the ones they moved to.

> afraid that my limited English vocabulary is unable to find a more positive

The IESG is encouraged to review a presentation I gave several IETFs ago on
the matter.  I'd suggest a form of this be integrated into the general IETF
training material, perhaps through emodir.

https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/97/materials/slides-97-idr-code-point-management-02

I'm happy to speak to the IESG at large about the issue.

> confirms the allocation ? What am I missing here ?

The update is to change the allocation mechanism from experimental to FCFS.
It opens up other allocations within those ranges to general use.

-- Jeff

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From: "Eric Vyncke (evyncke)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2021 13:44:53 +0000

Jeff,

First, thank you for your slides, they are common sense and useful.

And I agree that once code has shipped, then there is no way to change it... I am taking this as a heads-up to be cautious about not labelling something experimental if it goes outside of labs ;-)

Thank you, as well, for your other replies

Regards

-éric

On 01/12/2021, 14:10, "Jeffrey Haas" <[email-masked]> wrote:

    Éric,

    -- Jeff