Subject: Oppose: LL27 LL-only hosts are out of scope for this specification

From: Stuart Cheshire <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 14:02:51 -0800

Keith Moore wrote:

>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

The people who have such mini-networks want to buy products that will 
interoperate on those networks.

The vendors who sell products to use on such mini-networks need standards 
to follow to make their devices interoperate.

Keith Moore's position on this seems to be declaring the IETF irrelevant 
to this large market of new devices, and seems to be willfully abdicating 
whatever kind of authority the IETF may have had in this area to some 
other (as yet unidentified) standards body.

I do not believe this is correct.

I believe it is a mistake for the IETF to limit its scope to TCP/IP 
devices and applications only where those devices and applications are 
used on the one large network we call the Internet.

IP-based protocols have useful application in many other contexts too. I 
don't see any strong argument why the IETF should close its eyes to those 
contexts and pretend they don't exist.

Keith Moore also wrote:

>Inherent in the entire concept of "INTERnet", and the "Internet
>Protocol" is the ability to communicate _between_ networks.

This is true, and this capability of IP is a great benefit. However, 
everyone is not obliged to use every capability of IP. My BMW is capable 
of driving at 150MPH. It is nice to know it can do that, but is every 
owner of a BMW obliged to drive it at 150MPH every time they use it? It's 
still a good car at 65MPH too.

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

---

From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 19:31:29 +0700

Date:        Sun, 23 Feb 2003 14:02:51 -0800
    From:        Stuart Cheshire <[email-masked]>
    Message-ID:  <[email-masked]>

  | This is true, and this capability of IP is a great benefit. However, 
  | everyone is not obliged to use every capability of IP. My BMW is capable 
  | of driving at 150MPH. It is nice to know it can do that, but is every 
  | owner of a BMW obliged to drive it at 150MPH every time they use it? It's 
  | still a good car at 65MPH too.

This is actually the essence of this issue, I believe.   But not in the
way you expect I think.

The answer to the embedded question is, of course, no - but the analogy
does not hold to LL27 - nothing there is requiring all nodes to use
routable addresses all the time, just to be able to.

A better question would be would it be acceptable for a standard for
car designed to operate on freeways to suggest that cars that cannot be
driven faster than 100km/hr (that's close enough to the obsolete units
used above) should comply?

Nothing stops people building bicycles, nor others from using them.  They
don't (usually) manage 100km/hr, but nor do they claim to be freeway
compatible cars.   Even though they still have many things in common
(wheels, lights, their purpose in getting people from one place to another).

I might never drive faster than 100 (well, if you knew me, you'd know that's
not very likely accurate, but never mind) but I certainly expect my vehicle
to be able to do that, should I need it to.   Even if I usually only drive
around local neighbourhoods at much lower speeds even than 100.

kre