Re: sysctl should disable ECN by default
On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, T.Pospisek's MailLists wrote:
> > Yes, quite frankly. Personally, I use only Free Software and software
> > that runs on top of Free OSes. Professionally, I work for an ISP, and
> > we expect our vendors to live up to the promises they make.
> If that's the case then shouldn't we disable all those kernel
> compatibility hacks by default? Don't tell me your machine is clean, and
> all those components are 100% protocol compliant.
Which other kernel compatibility hacks are in place to work around buggy,
non-compliant implementations of IETF standards? It's one thing to include
code for compatibility with unusual BIOSes, controllers, etc., which are not
expected to conform with any standards other than electrical ones. It's
another thing to include code for compatibility with routers that fail to
conform with open, published protocol standards that date back two decades.
An Internet router that can't follow the TCP/IP spec is no Internet router at
all, and vendors who sell such products under the pretense that they *are*
Internet routers are legally liable in most jurisdictions.
> please live up to your claim and sue Cisco for their bloody CiscoPPP which
> in the "early days" wouldn't allow you to connect a standard PPP device to
> it, will you?
Erm... why? Just because we're assertive in protecting our investments
doesn't mean we're in the business of frivolously suing other companies. Most
vendors we work with are also willing to work with us in order to resolve
technical deficiencies in their products. On occasion, we've found vendors
who were not willing to work with us; in those cases, litigation was a logical
choice.
We don't use 'CiscoPPP', nor have we ever been negatively affected by such a
creature. Suggesting that we should sue Cisco because somebody else has been
is just silly.
> Now let me tell you that possibly Zyxel is the biggest SOHO ISDN router
> vendor in Europe. So what?
And they haven't provided patches for their firmware?
And the ISPs that have customers using these routers haven't raised a stink
about it?
And the end-users who have these routers don't have class-action lawsuits as a
recourse?
And Debian therefore has a duty to pick up the slack on behalf of everyone
else who isn't taking responsibility for the problem?
> Why is it that you are mixing up Zyxel and Zylex. Let me guess: you don't
> have ISDN around.
Plenty of ISDN around -- no Zyxel. (Less and less ISDN, for that matter,
which is wonderful in my opinion.)
Probably no Zyxel because they're as bad at creating a device that works with
US ISDN signalling standards as they are at creating a device that works with
IETF standards, perhaps?[1]
> But you can sure tell from my enthusiasm, and I'm no networking idiot,
> that I *do* feel strong about it and that's exactly because I had fun
> lately with it and I don't think it's necessary for everybody who happens
> to have the bad luck to find itself in the same position to forcibly
> repeat that lovely experience. And you can be certain that if the
> situation stays as it is, I will not be the last one.
And if the situation changed today, you /still/ would not be the last one,
because the adoption of ECN as a standard is still moving forward. If, as
your message suggests, nothing is being done on a large scale about the
problems with this hardware, why would the situation be any different two
years from now when these same users can get out through their router fine,
but can't connect to half the websites on the planet because those websites
are now using ECN?
I sympathize with having to debug obscure network problems, and I agree that
we should not cause our users undue hardship. But as others have suggested,
it's better to deal with this by documenting the problem instead of expecting
that turning ECN off will make the problem go away on its own.
> But tell me *one* thing:
> Why is it so hard to change a few lines and have the default be
> set to *off* and let whoever feels like it enable it?
Nothing difficult about it -- but it's still the maintainer's call whether or
not this should be done. There are plenty of arguments both for and against
enabling ECN, and no amount of discussing them in debian-devel changes the
fact that it's the maintainer's decision to make.
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer
[1] Don't think that I'm picking on Zyxel exclusively. There are plenty of
US-made ISDN routers I would rather burn than use. Zyxel just happens to be
this week's poster child for bad router vendors.
Reply to: