Re: new version of the draft

[Frank Kastenholz <[e-mail]>]

 >    [.... fun with multicasting ...]  However, we
 >    believe that v7 should represent a significant functional improvement
 >    over v4 or else there will be little reason to change.
 > 
 > I would submit that impending doom from address space depletion is
 > sufficient motivation in and of itself.  0.5 ;-)

One would hope. However, there is another, equally conceivable path:
the Internet Balkanizes and that there are various "small" Internets
connected together via application-level gateways. Also, if there is
a good coexistance/translation scheme that allows IPv4-only hosts to
talk to IPv7-only hosts (e.g. via some translating gateway) then why
should any given site convert? Why not have everyone else convert?

In many ways the Internet is what economists call a Common.  Commons
are places where everyone can come and use the resources with equal
access and equal cost to all. The cost to use a Common is the same
regardless of how much of it you use -- sort of like an all you can
eat buffet at a restaurant. So, there is every incentive for the
users of a Common to consume as much of the Common as they can, just
as at the buffet everyone tries to eat as much as they can trying to
get more than $10 or whatever worth of food.  The concept originated
several hundred years ago in small farming villages with what is now
called the Town Common. The Town Common was a place where each farmer
could bring his cows or sheep or whatever and let them graze. Of
course, every farmer did just that, and had his animals graze as much
as he could, taking more than their "fair share" and there was
nothing that could be done to regulate this over-use. Since each
farmer took as much as he could, the Common soon became a barren
mud-hole.

The Internet is similar. Other than peer pressure, why should I do
things that end up 'costing' me when I can figure out some way to get
you to pay the cost and let me derive the benefit? If I get everyone
to convert to IPv7 but me, and I continue to make use of the
IPv4<->IPv7 translating gateways then you have paid the cost of
adopting the new IP and I gain the benefit (at no cost to myself) of
a ubiquitous Internet. By having new and improved functions available
on IPv7, ones that are not available on IPv4, then there now is
incentive for me to convert to IPv7. If I convert, I get new
functions, if I do not convert, I do not get these functions.

This, of course, ignores "peer" pressure by the community which so
far has worked at keeping us all good citizens. As the Internet
becomes more ubiquitous we will be bringing in people who are less
affected by this "peer" pressure, or people who are not indoctrinated
into, and believe, the culture.
--
Frank Kastenholz