Rolf,
I do not think that legacy middlebox behavior is a good reason to change
existing PDU semantics. The following are rationale:
1.
We may be subverting the purpose of the middle box. Some middleboxes are
firewalls. Assume that a network operator doesn't want reverse traceroute
traffic in their network until they have had time to evaluate it. By making
reverse traceroute traffic indistinguishable from PING (at least to legacy
middlebox), we sneak past the network's defenses.
2.
We are setting a bad precedent. If we change the semantics of an existing PDU
every time we need a new function, semantics will become overloaded sooner or
later. Do we want to face that painful situation in the future, or do we want
to get people in the habit of keeping their middleboxes up to date now.
3.
We may remove what little motivation operators have to keep their middle boxes
up to date.
Ron
Juniper Business Use Only
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