Introducing draft-denog-v6ops-addresspartnaming

Mon Nov 22 22:18:04 UTC 2010

On Mon, Nov 22, 2010 at 16:23, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:

> then, the other ISPs
> will eventually find themselves at a competitive disadvantage as their
> customers start to ask "Why can't I have a /48 like my friend Bob
> got from provider Z?"

I kinda implied that, but yes, I should have written it out. Thanks :)

> So... Don't worry, I ended up picking up the educational task where
> you left off.

Even though this is getting kinda off topic:

In my private life, I either explain what a bit vector is or I tell
them to use a /24.

In my professional life, I either deal with people who can grasp the
bit vector thing or they bought the complete care package anyway,
meaning that we tell them where to click on the CMS to make the
colourful overload they call a website go bling. In the latter case, I
don't have to explain anything because

a) that part is handled by someone else
b) they have no interest whatsoever in learning what an IP address is,
let alone a netmask.

> (OK, maybe not the exact same set of users, but, honest, you're not
> the only one who took this approach and it did lead to interesting
> breakages by users so educated in a number of places I have worked.)

The question is: Would those users have acted any differently if
someone went to the trouble of explaining in depth what they would
have forgotten within days?

> Well, in IPv6, I think ending them on nibbles is fine.

Hmm, true. That's fine, too.

Richard