IPv6 client loss measurements, now on the web

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

On 4/29/2010 12:13 AM, Tore Anderson wrote:
> Good morning, Ted,
>
> * Ted Mittelstaedt
>
>> But seriously, I think your really doing a disservice to Mac owners.
>
> I'm sorry you interpreted the page in that way.  It was certainly not
> meant to be.  What I want to do is simply to raise awareness of the
> issues that exist, and hopefully convince those in a position to do
> something about them to actually do so.  Apple is certainly one of those
> - I believe that a fix provided by them would benefit everyone, their
> own users most of all.
>

You have to understand part of my post was very tongue-in-cheek.  As
you know Apple's marketing department runs all of their marketing
as though Apple is God's Gift to Computing and the Macophiles just
eat that up, they love it.  (ie: Mac vs PC adverts, etc.)  Thus it is
enormous fun to find a flaw like this, it's like finding and pointing 
out a paint flaw in a Rolls Royce.

Obviously it's a serious issue.  But really stupid flaws have got a
lot more attention from Apple before and been fixed quite rapidly.
This one is among the "for lack of a nail the war was lost" flaws
and really should have been taken care of immediately.  For goodness
sake, as Darwin is built on FreeBSD all they needed to do was go
lift the code FreeBSD used to fix this in it's distro and use that!!

> The reason why I haven't thanked Apple in the acknowledgements section
> is simply because they haven't yet released any fix (or stated an
> intention to do so).  That's also why I thank the individual Linux
> distributions instead of the GNU libc upstream developers, who declined
> to fix the issue.
>
>> If you HAVEN'T contacted Apple then say so and I'm sure there's a
>> few Mac owners who have their brand new Macs will take it upon
>> themselves to contact Apple for you.
>>
>> If you HAVE contacted them and they have pooh-poohed this then say
>> so also and once more I'm sure there's going to be some
>> well-connected Mac owners who will bring pressure to bear.
>>
>> Or if you HAVE contacted them and they have said "we are working on a
>> fix" then once more, Mac owners have an interest in knowing.
>>
>> But don't just leave us hanging by saying nothing.  Mac owners will
>> want this fixed, just like they would want any bug in MacOS fixed,
>> the sooner the better.  For them to get it done means that we need
>> public documentation of Apples responses.
>
> Given that one of my goals is to convince Apple to provide a fix, it
> would certainly be counter-productive to not actually tell them about
> the issue in the first place.  So rest assured that I have.  In addition
> to the posts to Apple's IPv6 list that are linked to in my page
> page, I have sent direct e-mails to Stuart Cheshire, Apple's
> representative on the IAB (at the time), and James Woodyatt, an Apple
> engineer who's active the on IETF IPv6 lists.  I've also posted about
> the issues to those IETF lists.
>
> I have not submitted a bug report.  I felt that would be redundant, as
> one of the first replies to my post to the Apple IPv6 list was from
> Janos Mohacsi, who stated «[N]umber of people filled bug report,
> including me».
>
> The only feedback I've received from Apple is a confirmation that my
> messages on the subject has been read and discussed by their engineers.
>   This confirmation was sent to me privately, by the way, so I do not
> feel it would be proper to put it up on the site as «public documentation».
>

I'd encourage you that despite your private assurances that there are
bug reports on this already that have been looked at, that you go 
through the motions of submitting the bug through the official link,
then post Apple's response to that.

Either that, or email Janos and ask what the bug number is and post
that number and name on your site.

> I did not want to make a big deal about this on the page, as I thought
> that could easily be mis-interpreted as me «slamming» Apple on lack of
> communication - which certainly isn't my intention.  I understand that
> Apple's corporate culture is rather secretive, so [I hope that] the lack
> of communication does not necessarily mean that a fix is not forthcoming.
>
> In any case, I've added the phrase «I've reported the issue to Apple,
> and have received confirmation that their engineers are aware of it» to
> the page now,

Excellent.  This makes all the difference in the world as now that this
is on record, interested Mac users can refer to this site when they
file their own bug reports to Apple, this prevents Apple from making
the excuse that "it's the first time we've heard of this"  Even better
of course would be a bug assignment number from Apple that could be used
as a referral.


Ted