240/4

Fri Oct 19 04:21:14 UTC 2007

Thus spake "Pekka Savola" <pekkas at netcore.fi>
> The operators who want to do something private with this space don't need 
> the IETF or IANA approval to do so.  So they should just go
> ahead and do it.  If they can manage to get it to work, and live to tell 
> about it, maybe we can consider that sufficient proof that we can start 
> thinking about reclassification.

There are, fortunately, a number of vendors that don't like to go against 
existing RFCs.  We're one of them.  Regardless of customer demand, I will 
block any attempt inside our development group to allow 240/4 until the IETF 
reclassifies it from experimental to unicast address space.  Note that doing 
that would _not_ automatically imply that the IETF would direct IANA to 
delegate that space to the RIRs; the IETF could direct IANA to mark one /8 
as private and the rest reserved.  Releasing the rest to the RIRs shouldn't 
be done until it is observed that a non-trivial number of hosts on the 
public network support it -- if that ever happens.

I can see cases for using 240/4 on private networks where one has more 
control over patches getting deployed (or is using OSes one can patch 
themselves or bully vendors to patch), but that's all that's worth 
discussing now.  Short of someone from Microsoft indicating they'd post a 
patch on Windows Update for Vista, XP, and possibly earlier systems, any 
discussion of _when_ these addresses _might_ be usable on a public network 
is a waste of bits.

S

Stephen Sprunk         "God does not play dice."  --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723         "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS        dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking 