Android (lack of) support for DHCPv6

Wed Jun 10 17:18:04 UTC 2015

I don't really feel I was trying to take things out of context, but the
full quote would be:

"If there were consensus that delegating a prefix of sufficient size via
DHCPv6 PD of a sufficient size is an acceptable substitute for stateful
IPv6 addressing in the environments that currently insist on stateful
DHCPv6 addressing, then it would make sense to implement it. In that
scenario, Android would still not implement DHCPv6 NA, but it would
implement DHCPv6 PD."

To me, that's essentially saying:

"EVEN IF we decided to support DHCPv6-PD, and that's a big IF, we will
never support stateful address assignment via DHCPv6."

This rings especially true when compared against the context of everything
else you've written on the subject.

I think that's how most others on this list would read it as well.

If that isn't what you meant to say, then I'm sorry.  I'm certainly not
trying to put words in your mouth.

I still feel that it's a very poor position to take.

Given that you don't speak for Google on the subject, if you're not
the decision maker for this issue on Android, could you pull in the people
at Google who are, or at least point us to them?

A lot of us would like the chance to make our case and expose the harm that
Android is doing by not supporting DHCPv6.

I think the Android team is very overconfident in their ability to shape
the direction of IPv6 adoption, especially with years old Android releases
being still in production and it taking incredibly long for changes to
trickle down through the Android ecosystem.

That delay is also why we have a hard time accepting the mindset that IF
you see a need for it in the future you'll add it.  That will be 4 to 8
years too late.

On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 12:29 PM, Lorenzo Colitti <lorenzo at colitti.com>
wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 12:36 AM, Jeff McAdams <jeffm at iglou.com> wrote:
>
>> Then you need to be far more careful about what you say. When you said
>> "Android would still not support..." you, very clearly, made a statement of
>> product direction for a Google product.
>
>
> Did you intentionally leave the "in that scenario," words that came right
> before the ones you quoted?
>
> How does a sentence that says "in that scenario, android would <X>"
> constitute a statement of direction?
>

-- 
Ray Patrick Soucy
Network Engineer
University of Maine System

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