[ppml] [address-policy-wg] Those pesky ULAs again

[Iljitsch van Beijnum]

On 29-mei-2007, at 19:38, Owen DeLong wrote:

>>> Uh, neither of those reasons undermines the solution others have
>>> proposed: use PI space.

>> That's like saying people can use real money instead of monopoly  
>> money. I really don't get this. Did you guys bet a lot of money  
>> that there would never be ULA-C or something?

> Um, no.  It's like saying that counterfeit money is bad and we'd  
> rather not
> create a sponsored system for printing it.

Your view that ULA-C is like counterfeit money while it's more like  
monopoly money nicely illustrates the entire point (or rather,  
pointlessness) of this discussion.


On 29-mei-2007, at 19:39, David Williamson wrote:
>> If you don't like it, don't use it yourself and filter it, but PLEASE
>> don't whine about it.

> Calling a debate "whining" is a bit rude.

Whether DHCPv6 is better than stateless autoconfiguration is a  
debate. The people who think DHCPv6 is the way to go are wrong, but  
there is no harm in them thinking that: they can run DHCPv6 while I  
run stateless autoconfig and everyone is happy.

The whole ULA-C thing is not a debate. The anti-group is trying to  
wear the pro-group down by repeating the same few arguments that  
don't make a whole lot of sense over and over, and try to deprive the  
pro-group from something that group feels is useful based on fear,  
uncertainty and doubt. It's bullying.

> My "whining" isn't intended to change your mind - I don't think any
> argument I make is likely to do that.  My argument, however, is that
> there's no problem solved by ULA-C that can't be solved by PI space,

That's not really true, because ULA is recognizable as such, while PI  
space is presumed to be routable, even if routing it isn't desired.

But more importantly, ULA-C would be exceedingly easy to get, while  
PI is exceedingly hard to get.

> and the creation of ULA-C would entirely undermine the RIR-based PI
> system.

If only that were true. Unaggregatable PI is something we know can't  
work if widely deployed. But the realities of the RIR system are such  
that this is irrelevant.

The only way ULA-C can effectively become PI is if everyone (for a  
large value of "everyone") accepts those advertisements. That will  
only happen if everyone thinks its a good idea, i.e., when you guys  
change your mind. Since there doesn't seem to be much danger of that  
happening (and people like me, who are also quite stubborn, are also  
against this) I don't see the problem. And IF we all change our  
minds, then obviously we'd have a good reason for that, wouldn't we?

> If you seriously think that
> ULA-C is entirely orthogonal to PI space, and will have zero impact
> on the usage of PI space...well...we'll have to agree to disagree.

You can agree to disagree on things that are a matter of opinion or  
believe. You can't agree to disagree on an engineering decision with  
global impact.

> All of this, of course, distracts from the real underlying problem, as
> Mr. Vixie points out.

Identifier/locator split, you mean?

There was no way they could have designed and implemented that  
successfully 25 years ago: not enough giants to stand on the  
shoulders of. We can probably do those parts now, but I'm not so sure  
about being able to deploy it, and if it's actually going to buy us  
something if we manage that.