Subject: 6. Zeroconf Charter?

From: Stuart Cheshire <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 02:32:21 -0800

John Welch wrote that we want to, "make IP as easy, or easier to use as 
Appletalk."

Keith Moore replied:

>This is not in this group's charter.  If this group is trying to
>do that, it's violating its charter and it needs a mercy killing.

I think that many of the people doing genuine work in this working group 
believed that an important part of the group's charter was to make 
networking easier to use, particularly in the case of small networks used 
by inexpert users.

If, as Keith asserts, making networking easier to use is a violation of 
the group's charter, then perhaps that means the charter was poorly 
worded and failed to clearly convey the true intent of the people who 
created it.

Perhaps the charter did not clearly state that one of the goals was a 
solution that was both reliable and easy to use, but I do not believe 
that the charter specifically prohibited it.

Stuart Cheshire <[email-masked]>
 * Wizard Without Portfolio, Apple Computer, Inc.
 * Chairman, IETF Zeroconf
 * www.stuartcheshire.org

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 14:13:09 -0500

I think it should be various obvious by now that the charter was poorly
worded.  It's one thing to make IP networking easier to use, quite
another to design a way to configure IP addresses for hosts on isolated,
ad hoc networks.  v4LL can largely addresss the second problem, but the
existence of v4LL makes it even more difficult to solve the first
problem. 

It's very unfortuante that people have been trying to justify v4LL as a
solution to the first problem.

Keith

> John Welch wrote that we want to, "make IP as easy, or easier to use
> as Appletalk."
> 
> Keith Moore replied:
> 
> I think that many of the people doing genuine work in this working
> group believed that an important part of the group's charter was to
> make networking easier to use, particularly in the case of small
> networks used by inexpert users.
> 
> If, as Keith asserts, making networking easier to use is a violation
> of the group's charter, then perhaps that means the charter was poorly

---

From: "John C. Welch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2003 17:08:17 -0500

> solution to the first problem.

Because it's the only way to get IPv4 to be usable by non-geeks inside of
the next decade? IPv4 Networking is an overly complex mess that should have
never been allowed to be used by anyone with less than two years of
networking experience.

john

-- 
John C. Welch
Consultant III
Administrative Computing
(617) 253 - 1368 work
(508) 579 - 7380 cell
bynkii2          AIM

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 17:56:52 -0500

On Thu, 06 Feb 2003 17:08:17 -0500
"John C. Welch" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> the next decade? 

It doesn't solve that problem, and trying to make it solve that problem makes
IPv4 less usable for everyone.  No matter whether you're a geek or not, using
v4LL isn't going to get your computer talking to the web, it isn't going to
get your email working, it isn't going to let you play distributed games, and
it isn't going to let you use netmeeting.

Now will you please stop the ridiculous claims?  They're insulting to the
whole group, and they're hindering progress.

Keith

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From: "Bill Rees" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 15:09:48 -0800

Keith,
        I've gone back looking for your suggestions on a solution to this
problem but I can't seem to find them.  If I want to design a standard for
automating networking for consumer devices so there's no configuration
needed, what would this look like?

bill
----- Original Message ----- > It doesn't solve that problem, and trying to
make it solve that problem makes

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 18:19:59 -0500

> needed, what would this look like?

As a first approximation which is more-or-less compatible with the installed
base, DHCP (or maybe RARP/BOOTP) with v4LL used as a last resort.
(either that or IPv6 - if you're taking the long view)

If you want that mechanism to be less failure-prone, you need to tweak DHCP
here and there to enable networks (and hosts) to more gracefully recover from
DHCP server and network failures, and/or make some recommendations about DHCP
server operation and configuration.

If you want a more secure mechanism, there's no way to do this without
distributing authentication information to the devices.  But at least DHCP
already has an authentication mechanism defined, which seems to be fairly
optimal.

Keith