240/4

Fri Oct 19 05:21:25 UTC 2007

On Fri, Oct 19, 2007, Joe Greco wrote:

> So is this a statement that Cisco is volunteering to provide free binary
> patches for its entire product line?  Including the really old stuff
> that happens to be floating around out there and still in use?

Considering there's forklift upgrades required to support changes in
technology anyway, I see this as not a problem. People can choose if
they'd like to use that space.

People -chose- to use some new IP space which had once been bogon
space and then spent quite a bit of time figuring out why the hell
customers couldn't reach the general internet. People adapted.

> The day you guys release a set of free binary patches for all your
> previous products, including stuff like the old Compatible Systems
> line, old Cisco gear like the 2500, and old Linksys products, then
> I'll be happy to concede that I could be wrong and that vendors might
> actually make it possible for IPv4-240+ to be usable.

You know, Cisco do release updates to old IOS software periodically.
ISTR seeing a Cisco 2500 IOS update -this year-. Yup:

 c2500-is-l.123-23.bin  	16  	16  	25-JUL-2007

Its so not out of the realm of possibility Cisco, just as an example
of one vendor of $LOTS, would do a software rebuild run just for this
particular issue. 

All IETF "has to do" is possibly reclassify 240/4 from "experimental/future
use" to "experimental unicast space" to satisfy the vendors that would
block on 240/4 being routable and satisfy those who are worried that
putting it on the public internet is bad (and I'm one of them for now);
then let the market decide what they want to do.

Adrian