FEC Encoding ID allocation

Colleagues,

The conditions under which an FEC Encoding ID is allocated is still open,
and thus I'm sending another email to spur discussion and hopefully close
this issue soon, as it is holding up progress.  Before I expressed a
preference for option A, but upon further reflection I think the following
is the right way to proceed:

 

(1)     Option B for Fully-Specified FEC Encoding IDs. 

(2)     Option B for Under-Specified FEC Encoding IDs.

a.       FEC Instance IDs associated with an Under-Specified FEC Encoding ID
are registered according to the current FEC building block specification
(which I think are even weaker than Option C)

 

Thus, as the name implies Fully-Specified means a full written specification
that has undergone IETF scrutiny and is under the control of the IETF, which
is what Option B provides.   There will probably be less of these, since the
process for getting one of these approved is quite a bit of work, and thus
it may turn out that having space for 128 of these is sufficient, but only
time will tell.  

 

The rationale for Under-Specified FEC Encoding IDs is that one must remember
that these don't actually specify an FEC scheme, the Under-Specified FEC
Encoding ID only provides the packet framework and FEC OTI framework
(leaving room for interpretation and further scheme specific information on
a FEC scheme specific basis).  The idea is that the same FEC Encoding ID can
(and should) be reused by many many FEC schemes, and these FEC schemes can
be easily registered with IANA (obtain an FEC Instance ID) by outside
bodies/individual/parties without any IETF scrutiny, providing very little
information (a reference to a product, or a public document, etc.).  Thus,
having the Under-Specified FEC Encoding IDs adhere to Option B in no way
impedes other commercial standardization bodies from very easily registering
their own FEC schemes (by registering a FEC Instance ID) without any IETF
scrutiny, and recall that there are up to 65536 FEC Instance IDs that can be
registered with each Under-Specified FEC Encoding ID.  On the other hand,
since a Under-Specified FEC Encoding ID can and should be reused for many
many FEC schemes, it makes sense for the specification of Under-Specified
FEC Encoding IDs to have a full written specification that has undergone
IETF scrutiny and is under the control of the IETF, which is what Option B
provides.   Note that there can be up to 128 Under-Specified FEC Encoding
IDs, and for each one there can be up to 65536 FEC Instance IDs (and thus a
total of around 8 million FEC schemes), and thus I think for the time being
the name spaces are large enough, but again only time will tell.  .

Mike

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