V6 still not supported

Wed Mar 23 05:34:18 UTC 2022

George Michaelson wrote:
> Thats partly why I
> find a huge personal disconnect with "failure" -It hasn't failed the
> way DECnet failed. Far from it.

Since IPv6 was born of the effort to fix the upcoming address shortage 
visible at the time and to prevent and alleviate the resulting negative 
effects, the fact that it did not and that globally v4 address shortage 
is still a problem is a tally of multiple years of failure.

I will give you that address shortage and resulting constraints is 
actually a spectrum, one we have not finished traveling on. I suppose we 
can date it from the time a class-c stopped being included as part of 
your leased line all the way to the hasnt happened yet point where you 
cant get v4 for any affordable amount. So yes, IPv6 will probably save 
the internet at some point before the end of that spectrum is reached, 
but the damage has already been done, and lots of it.

Now if the goal was to produce a protocol that would work eventually as 
good as IPv4 and would theoretically fix the address shortage, but only 
if the non-practical mass conversion occurred immediately, well than its 
a success and has been for some time. However, successes like that are 
not what made the internet.

>
> There is this other side: I'm dualstack, and I simply dont notice.

Being in transition state indefinitely is not success.

The other side is when you are v6 only and you dont notice. We arent 
there yet. Thats the failure.

>   
> Here's my final (serious) suggestion. We aren't going to be able to
> reverse course out of the current situation. Maybe the best thing, is
> to engineer it, not complain about it. Engineering won't end either
> right now. Betting on 4 continuance is betting on markets over
> planning. Maybe thats what some people want? What I want doesn't
> matter that much btw.
>
> -G

Hope for the best and prepare for the worst. That means improving v6 and 
making it more adoptable and appealing to more diverse user populations.

It also means taking measures to prolong v4.

That means give them DHCP the way they want it, give them NAT the way 
they want it. Give them whatever you can whatever they want in v6 the 
way they want it, whether you like it or not. Just get it out there more 
and more faster and faster.  Ideological concerns had their day and its 
over. We are past deadline. Just get it done. Or get out of the way of 
those who want to. Yes, RiR's, IPv6 costing anyone any more money was a 
false start penalty.

It also means taking a real look at proposal like 240/4 and whatever 
else can be scrounged up, extended, worked around, whatever you have, 
because if the worst happens and we are still having these threads in a 
decade, we are going to need it. bad. And if the best happens, who cares 
about v4 and what was done to it anyways?

Now you can say nah, I am betting on things working out just the way 
they are now, but lets be clear about that.

Joe