Subject: [mobile-ip] Closing issues 202 and 184 (S-bit related)

From: gabriel montenegro <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 13:14:31 +0100

The chairs have observed that there has been much ongoing discussion
around the S-bit. After a flurry of exchanges on the mailing list, we
have identified many issues and either proposed solutions for them or
composed the proper warnings. But we are not sure if we've found all
the issues, because we've been here before, and each time new issues
have been uncovered.  Even assuming no further issues are uncovered,
the result has been additional complexity in the protocol.

Most importantly, folks have expressed that they would in fact prefer
if the S-bit (and the implied complexity) were removed from the base
specification.

 From what we have observed, this is what the informal tally looks like:

  pro: charlie, vijay
  cons: greg o'shea, jari, francis, brian haley, mohan, marc hasson
         Vladislav Yasevich, ed remmell

We must make a decision now in preparation for the impending IETF last
call.  It seems to us like there is rough consensus for removing the
S-bit from the base specification. The decision is therefore straightforward.

We are now closing issues 184 and 202 by removing the S-bit from the base
specification. As it is an optimisation, it is non-essential for the
basic protocol.

Finally, we must note that the observed consensus is not against the
S-bit per se, but rather against its inclusion in the base specification
for MIPv6.

-the chairs