Subject: new issue: LL-only hosts are out of scope

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 13:36:58 -0500

might as well get this one on the table...

Description of issue: 
LL-only hosts are out of scope for this specification
Submitter name: Keith Moore
Submitter email address: [email-masked]
Date first submitted: 11 February 2003
Reference:
Comment type: T
Priority: S
Rationale:

The Internet Engineering Task Force develops specifications which, when
followed, should permit interoperation of conforming implementations on
the Internet.  With very few exceptions, IETF has considered the
behavior of private networks (i.e. networks that are entirely
controlled by a single party) as outside of its scope. 

(Use of the Internet Protocol on purely isolated, ad hoc networks would
also be out-of-scope and of little interest to IETF -- except that
some interchange between hosts using link-local addresses and hosts
using routable addresses is unavoidable, and that absent careful
consideration of the effects of such interchange, introduction of
link-local addressing to IPv4 would be expected to adversely affect the
ability of hosts and applications to interoperate over the Internet.)

Inherent in the entire concept of "INTERnet", and the "Internet
Protocol" is the ability to communicate _between_ networks.  Devices
which don't support that ability should not claim conformance to IP or
compatibility with the Internet, and IETF should not be blessing
specifications that encourage the creation of a class of devices (and
applications) that inherently cannot interoperate with the Internet.

Requested change:

Insert this section at an appropriate place in the document:
----
##. Hosts which implement only link-local addressing

Inherent in the entire concept of "Internet" is the ability to
communicate between (not just within) networks, and the Internet
Protocol was designed specifically to facilitate communication between
hosts on potentially dissimilar, and perhaps distant, networks. Hosts
which are inherently incapable of communicating with hosts on other IP
networks cannot meaningfully be said to implement the Internet Protocol,
or to support Internet connectivity, even if they use similar packet
formats. 

Hosts which are incapable of being configured to use routable addresses,
or are incapable of being configured to route packets with nonlocal
destinations to a router, or which are incapable of exchanging traffic
with hosts on other IP networks, are therefore outside of the scope of
this specification.  While hosts with such limitations may still be
useful in specific contexts, it is not appropriate for such hosts to
claim conformance with this specification, or with the Internet
Protocol, or compatibility with the Internet.

In order to clearly distinguish hosts that implement link-local
addressing but are incapable of communicating with the Internet, from
hosts that are capable of communicating with the Internet, vendors of
the former kind of hosts are strongly urged to choose another name for
the former capability.  
----

Keith

p.s. The name "Local Interhost Protocol" with the acronym "LIP" is
offered as a strawman.  Then you could define LIP-specific services, or
"LIP services" for short.  This is easily distinguishable from IP while
still hinting at a similarity with IP, which seems like the right idea. 
However my guess is that marketroids will shy away from claiming
to make devices with LIPs, or which can only give LIP services.