Randy Bush wrote:
The fact that the *nog community stopped participating in the IETF has resulted in the situation where functionality is missing, because nobody stood up and did the work to make it happen.
the ops gave up on the ietf because it did no good to participate. so the choice was spend the time accomplishing nothing or do something else with one's time.
this is a slight exaggeration. it took me less than five years to get rid of NLAs, TLAs, ... wooo wooo!
Those were put in at the insistence of the ops / routing community as a way to constrain the routing table, by using the technology definition as a way to enforce a no-PI policy. The fact that it moved policy control from the RIRs to the IETF was later recognized as a problem, and moving it back was what took the time. The 'give-up' attitude is now coming home as a set of definitions that are not meeting the operational needs. This is not a criticism of anyone, but the general global expectation of instant gratification is causing people to give up on long cycle issues that need active feedback to keep the system in check. Many in the *nog community criticize their management for having a long-range vision that only reaches to the end of the next quarter, and this is a case where the engineering side of the house is not looking far enough forward. If you don't give the vendors a couple of years notice that you require IPv6, don't expect it to be what you want. Then if you expect multiple vendors to implement something close to the same and the way you want it, you need to engage at the IETF to make sure the definition goes the right way. Working group chairs are supposed to be facilitators for the work of the group, not dictators. If you are having a problem with a WG chair, inform the AD. If that doesn't help, inform the nomcom that the AD is not responsive. Giving up will only let the system run open-loop, and you should not be surprised when the outcome is not what you expect. Tony