A Reference Path and Measurement Points for Large-Scale Measurement of Broadband Performance
draft-ietf-ippm-lmap-path-07

I have no objection to the publication of this document, but I really 
struggled to get a grasp of the term "reference path". It seems
to be a fundamental term in sections 1 and 2, but doesn't get a lot of
explanation until section 3.1.

But even 3.1 is hard I suggested for me to grapple with.

   A reference path is a serial combination of routers, switches, links,
   radios, and processing elements that comprise all the network
   elements traversed by each packet between the source and destination
   hosts.  The reference path is intended to be equally applicable to
   all networking technologies, therefore the components are generically
   defined, but their functions should have a clear counterpart or be
   obviously omitted in any network technology.

I think may be it is your use of articles (definite vs. indefinite) and
plurals (singular vs plural) that has me confused.

"A reference path" or "The reference path"?

"traversed by each packet" or "traversed by a packet" or "traversed by
each packet in a flow"?

"The reference is intended" or "A reference path is intended"?

When you say "all networking technologies" in the context of "the path
of a packet" I wonder whether all networking technologies know what a
packet is.

I do wonder whether this key term could be defined in a clearer and
more comprehensible way.

Furthermore, the discussion in Section 4 seems to be discussion far
wider scoped elements in the reference path than is implied in the
section 3.1 definition (networks and access devices versus router,
switches, links and radios).

Tiny point: we're really trying to get away from "this memo" stuff... Can you call it a document instead?

I had the same problem as Adrian with the definition of "reference path", and I'm glad to see that Al is working on that.  For the record, here's the comment I'd composed offline, before I saw that conversation:
I'm not a performance metrics guy, I don't know what a "reference path" is, and there's no citation for it, though it's in the document title, abstract, introduction, and purpose and scope section.  I thought I could find it in RFC 2330, but it's not there ("path" alone is).  Where can I find a definition?  Please provide a reference and citation on first use in the intro.

I'd like to thank Elwyn for the Gen-ART review and authors for addressing the issues. However, the edits I believe are still to be applied to a -06. Is a new version forthcoming?

Thank you very much for your work on this draft, the discussion, and addressing the questions raised.

- I'm wondering if this works ok for a scenario where I use
my phone as a hotspot? From one POV there could then be 2
subscriber devices in the ref. path (with diff service
providers) and I'm not sure if that's allowed or not by
section 4. (Actually it might mean that network number 0
isn't a good plan?)

- How is this intended to be used when tunnels of various
kinds are in use? E.g. we've deployed stuff using openvpn a
number of times and it might be good if this stuff could be
used for measuring such deployments. 

- Good that you have the privacy consideration here and the
pointer to the framework draft. (Which I've not read yet,
sorry.) That pointer means that privacy does need to 
be substantively dealt with in the framework, but I
guess that'll be fine.