Subject: Re: Limited Domains:

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2021 09:01:08 +1200

On 13-Apr-21 06:13, Tom Herbert wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 10:50 AM Ron Bonica
> <rbonica=[email-masked]> wrote:
>>
>> Toerless,
>>
>> You say that "we simply should look into new, more flexible, extensible base header, backward compatible to IPv6/Internet (but with code points assigned to functionality, as we do with extension headers for example)."
>>
>> The idea is intriguing, but it leads to the following questions:
>>
>> - How do you make this new base header backwards compatible with IPv6-classic?
>> - Is draft-filsfils-6man-structured-flow-label an example of this new base header?
>>
> Right, it's hard to imagine that a new base header could be used
> without creating a new IP version which is at least twenty years just
> to get off the ground. I suppose the idea might be to have special
> value in the next protocol that indicates an extension to the base IP
> header, but then doesn't that just degenerate to to be another
> extension header?

Yes. And while we're at it, let's use Huffman coding for IP addresses.

Whatever we do, we won't get away from actual line-speed implementations
being constrained by current integrated circuit technology. So every few
years, with a new generation of technology, the constraints change, just
as the Strowger switch revolutionized telephony in 1891.

   Brian