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RE: Traffic Selectors (was SA fragments)
At 17:25 -0500 2/20/04, Paul Koning wrote:
> >>>>> "Bora" == Bora Akyol <bora@cisco.com> writes:
>
> Bora> I wrote several responses to this, but chose not to send them,
> Bora> if there is no technical merit to my proposal on traffic
> Bora> selectors, then be it.
>
> >> -----Original Message----- From: Stephen Kent
> >>
> >> ... I think you are way
> >> too late and have contributed far too little to be taken seriously
> >> in this regard.
>
>Bora is right.
>
>If his suggestions have technical merit, they have that merit whether
>he has contributed for 20 years or 20 days. Conversely, if they have
>no merit, they would still have no merit even if he had contributed
>far longer and far more.
>
>Can we please evaluate proposals on their technical merit and leave
>ad hominem comments out?
>
>Thanks,
> paul
Paul,
OK, you opened the dialogue, so I'll respond.
We have been working on IPsec for a very long time. We need not
address every suggestion for a change that arises from anyone. If we
did, we will never finish. Most WGs understand this and operate on
that basis.
In this case, Bora made an absurd, and to me, offensive, assertion,
i.e., "I think there is agreement that port based selectors do not
make sense for tunnel mode." There is no rational basis for this
assertion, based on the message exchanges on the list. In my opinion,
anyone who sends a message of this sort is way off base.
So, I checked my files to see if this was a comment from someone who
had a track record of contributing, since I am willing to give some
credence to an individual who has been a contributor. The result of
my search is exactly what I stated. It is an ad hominem argument
only to the extent that it provides a factual characterization of why
I believe his comments ought to be ignored.
While you are right that, in principle, anyone may be able to
contribute a good idea to a discussion, we don't have the time to
devote to work this way. Ask the ADs if they think we should
reconsider every aspect of the WG's work based on comments from
anyone who chooses to send a message, irrespective of his/her
contributory status. If someone finds an objective, technical flaw in
what we have proposed, then fine. But when someone suggests that,
based on his personal view, an extant feature of an existing standard
should be dropped and replaced with another, remotely analogous
feature, that's a different matter.
As for the substance of his suggestion, I find that it has NO merit. It is:
- half-baked (what if the offset goes beyond the next layer
protocol headers into data?, how do we apply this to a fragment? how
would it work with IPv6 headers with header extensions? how would it
work with IPv4 packets that contain options? ...)
- it would lead to interop problems because it's a "MAY" and
because it imposes no constraints on what offsets, lengths and mask
vales might be defined, thus leading to a new set of peer SPD
coordination requirements.
any other questions?
Steve