Re: IANA assignment policies

[Paul Hoffman / VPNC <paul.hoffman@vpnc.org>]

At 12:08 AM -0500 2/13/04, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
>There has been no further activity on the mailing list about IANA
>assignment policies for IKEv2, and we need to somehow make progress.
>
>So I'm going to make a set of proposals given the discussion which we've
>had on the subject:
>
>1) All numberspaces should have at least some (perhaps a very small)
>     Private Use, per David Black's concerns about being able to do
>     private experiments.
>
>2) All 16-bit and greater number spaces will have a policy of
>    Specification Required for the portion of the space which is reserved
>    for IANA assignment.
>
>3) All 8-bit number spaces shall have the following policy for the
>    portion of the space which is reserved for IANA assignment.  A number
>    may be assigned EITHER via a standards-track RFC OR by satisfying
>    both of the following policies: Specification Required and Expert
>    Review.  Furthermore, the review by the expert must follow a two-week
>    public discussion on a mailing list.  As always, the decision of the
>    expert may be appealed to the IESG who may decide to affirm or
>    override the Expert's decision.
>
>Does this satisfy everyone's concerns?

No. The private use proposal is fine. However, as Michael Richardson 
said on the list over a week ago, "I think that the consensus of the 
WG list is that all values should be a consistent "Expert Review"." 
This is an easy-to-understand policy on IANA assignments. There were 
people in favor, one concerned, and I believe his concerns were 
allayed.

Splitting the decision by size of field will not be easy to figure 
out for implementers, yet they are the main users of the IANA 
registry. The proposal of having some numbers be "Specification 
Required" for some spaces but Specification Required or expert review 
for other spaces means that proposals that include some of both have 
to deal with different requirements for a single proposal. Worse yet, 
"Specification Required" forces IANA to decide if a non-RFC document 
is "permanent and readily available". Knowing that has proven to be 
something that is well outside of IANA's skill set.

Please go with the earlier WG consensus, which is to make all values 
"Expert Review" instead of creating a new and more difficult to 
understand one.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium