Thought I'd toss in my two cents on IETF vs. what most of us are doing,
since I deal with standards all the time, and regularly interact with
some well funded research groups that play in the same space.
IMHO one of the ways in which the IETF protocols are far less
interesting in practice is their desire to use many standard protocols
together as the 'correct solution' instead of stepping on each others
turf and trying to combine them. As listed below - STUN + ICE + SIP +
... Add the complexity and ambiguity of the specifications, lack of
quality, unencumbered reference implementations, and contrast it with
the elegance possible if you simply learn from these protocols and
assemble your own that borrows the best of each.
I faced this same dilemma when building my current transport protocol
engine - I needed DOS resistance (client puzzles) right up front, ECDSA
with one and two way cert exchange, session key management, encryption +
MAC, all over UDP with parallel virtual channels with different delivery
options per channel ranging from unguaranteed to ordered/guaranteed and
with delivery notification options. Add NAT management on top (STUN,
relays, ect.)
Do you know how many IETF protocols I would had to bolt together to get
most of that feature set, and how big and complicated the resulting
codebase would be? And a simple requirement like client puzzles up
front breaks most standards, in any case, as does a simple requirement
to operate over a single random port number.
This is one of the biggest reasons why most of us roll our own. The
IETF groups are performing great research in their niches, but the
protocols themselves are rarely useful outside of their testbeds. On
the other hand, they make great reference reading, to see what use cases
and solutions the researches have documented, especially when those use
cases match data we've collected from the field.
Kerry Bonin
David Barrett wrote:
I disagree with Michael's assessment of the motivation of IETF
participants; everybody I've met appears to have the best of intentions.
My concern is the real world always seems like an unwelcome guest in
IETF discussions, and I constantly feel like an ass for harping on
things like data, implementations, actual use cases, etc.
Regardless, I'm eager to hear your (forgive me) real-world results
implementing the IETF P2P stack (STUN/ICE/SIP/etc). The proof is in
the pudding, so let's eat!
-david
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *On Behalf Of *Adam Fisk
*Sent:* Wednesday, September 12, 2007 10:11 AM
*To:* theory and practice of decentralized computer networks
*Subject:* Re: [p2p-hackers] Best NAT traversal options
Right. I forgot I'd seen you over on some of those lists. I'm
surprised you participate if you think it's all about commoditizing
the competition or gumming things up, though. Which one are you
doing? Joking joking.
No, I agree the IETF has problems, but some standard emerging out of
the p2p hackers list sure would scare me a lot more!
-Adam
On 9/5/07, *Michael Slavitch* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
For those that need help with that, try this:
http://www.google.com/search?&q=slavitch%20IETF
<http://www.google.com/search?&q=slavitch%20IETF>
On 9/5/07, Michael Slavitch < [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
> Yes, I know about the IETF. Google is your friend.
>
>
> On 9/5/07, Adam Fisk <[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
>
> > Do you know many people who work in or with the IETF? Have you
worked with
> > the IETF? I'm sincerely asking, because I would be surprised if
you had and
> > continued to hold your views. They make decisions by "taking a
hum" for
> > Christ's sake -- similar the yeahs and the neighs (sp?). These
people are
> > the enemy? To me, it's a miraculous example of cooperation amongst
> > frequently competing interests.
> >
> > -Adam
> >
> >
> >
> > On 9/5/07, Michael Slavitch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
> > >
> > > "The IETF is really not so different from this list -- a bunch of
> > > people getting together to make stuff work."
> > >
> > > Not so sure about that.
> > >
> > > The goal of participating in a standards body to either make things
> > > work to commoditize the competition or gum things up so that they
> > > never work, are horrendoes to implement, thereby creating
barriers to
> > > entry that only you can exploit.
> > >
> > > Look at IMS, for example.
> > >
> > > How easy is it to get ICE working, and I mean >working<, not
"working".
> > >
> > > How long has it taken to develop and finalize?
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > p2p-hackers mailing list
> > > [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> > >
> > http://lists.zooko.com/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers
> > >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > p2p-hackers mailing list
> > [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> > http://lists.zooko.com/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers
<http://lists.zooko.com/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers>
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Michael Slavitch
> Ottawa Ontario Canada
>
--
Michael Slavitch
Ottawa Ontario Canada
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