[Babel-users] [IETF I-D Submission Tool] New Version Notification for draft-chroboczek-babel-routing-protocol-05

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

> So the new thing is that Babel also suffers from routing loops? :-)

We're planning to have two versions of Babel.  BabelFree will be
available under the current license and suffer from routing loops; for
full loop-freeness, we recommend BabelPro (available for $29.95 plus tax).

> Why were there assumptions before that it does not and now that it does?

Nothing has changed, it's just that the draft now stresses things differently.

All versions of Babel have always been loop-free in pure mesh networks.

No verseion of Babel has ever been fully loop-free in networks with more
complex topologies; in such networks, Babel is mostly loop-free, in the
sense that it almost never creates routing loops in practice, and that
should it create a routing loop, it will get rid of it very quickly.

See for example Section 2.7 of the draft for an easy to understand
example of how a transient routing loop can occur in Babel.

Since the draft presents Babel as a fully general routing protocol, and
not as merely a protocol restricted to mesh networks, it makes sense to
make it clear that Babel is not loop-free in general.  Which is what the
IESG review suggested.

                                        Juliusz