Re: Deprecating IPv6 (Re: draft-bourbaki-6man-classless-ipv6-00)

[Matthew Petach <[e-mail]>]

Many of the arguments against this draft seem to
be of the form "this is bad because it might allow
uninformed people to make bad decisions which
could have bad outcomes."  I find this line of reasoning
to be somewhat disturbing.

Imagine, if you will, early man, out hunting for food
using his typical tool, a blunt club.  Along comes Thag,
with a sharpened stick, ready to join the hunt.  Early
man looks at it and says "wait...that looks dangerous;
someone could use that the wrong way, and hurt
themselves, or potentially hurt me.  Rather than
take that risk, and potentially learn new, more
efficient ways of getting food, let's just ban it
now, before anyone gets any new ideas."
We could still be out on the plains, beating
our meat with blunt clubs instead of learning
new ways of hunting.  We shouldn't fear progress,
even if it comes with a few roadbumps and bruises.

This draft isn't saying you *have* to use a bit boundary
other than /64; it's simply saying you have the *option*
to do so, if you like.  It's giving people the flexibility to
try new combinations out; some of them may be ill-advised;
a few warriors may come back with one less limb, having
discovered the _pointy_ end goes towards the prey.  But
on the whole, the potential for advancement would seem
to outweigh the risks of people maybe doing something
stupid here and there.

I support this draft for its ability to look beyond the
classful box, to a world in which creative new possibilities
open up before us, enabling new and unusual addressing
models and the potential for discovering new network
topologies we'd never considered before.
We shouldn't let ourselves be ruled by the fear of what
someone *might* do, and hold ourselves back from the
chance to progress and expand outside of our current
box.

Let's bring innovation back to the Internet.

Thanks!

Matt