A straightforward transition plan (was: Re: V6 still not supported)

Mon Mar 28 16:06:54 UTC 2022

Philip Homburg wrote:
> It should be clear that an IPv4-only host only speaks IPv4. This means 
> that communication with an IPv4-only host has to be IPv4.

This did not have to be true, had there been an extension/option 
standardized at the same time as IPv6 for IPv4 packets to be gateway'd 
into IPv6 transparently and efficiently (thru any dual stacked 
host/router), than at this point we would have likely been looking at 4 
classes of nodes

- IPv4 only, legacy, requires translation to communicate directly with ipv6

- IPv4 only, extended, just needs a gateway to communicate directly with 
IPv6

- Dual Stack

- IPv6 only

Such additional functionality, could have been organically updated into 
most major OS's without any required network topology changes.

Joe