Re: [v6ops] About Req for Comments - "Transition to IPv6"

[Owen DeLong <[e-mail]>]

> On Mar 11, 2020, at 19:06 , Fred Baker <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On Mar 5, 2020, at 8:46 AM, Owen DeLong <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> 
>>> Thank you very much for the pointer.  In it I could spot
>>> the following footnote: "[4] IPv6-Only refers to network environments in
>>> which use of the IPv4 protocol has been eliminated.”
>> 
>> IPv6-Only refers to network environments which are not using IPv4. That could be a network where IPv4 has been eliminated (rare at this time, though Facebook is a significant example) or it could be a greenfield deployment where IPv4 was never deployed.
> 
> <sans hats>
> 
> This, I think, is where the v6ops discussion has travelled in circles forever. To me, I would drop the word "network" and say that it is a specified environment. If I say that a system is IPv6-only, it is not using IPv6 internally or externally. It might or might not have IPv4 code in it, but it's not using it. If I say that a LAN, building, etc is IPv6-only, it is not to say that it couldn't have IPv4 in it if a DHCP server started handing out such addresses, but that it *doesn't*. If it is an Autonomous System, it means that only IPv6 is in use in that domain.
> 
> As soon as we get into the "but it could" or "was it translated from something else" or whatever rathole, we're into a discussion of angels, pins, and heads of pins. It will not end, because it can't. Someone will forever come up with a "what if" scenario to stir the pot.
> 
> Speaking for myself, I would have the user of the term identify the environment s/he is talking about, and say that *within*that*domain* communication is entirely accomplished using IPv6.
> 
> And STOP.

It seems to me that you are saying essentially the same thing I intended to say, Fred.

My key point was that IPv6-only could mean either of:

	+	Any environment where IPv4 usage has been discontinued and IPv6 is the sole remaining active protocol
OR
	+	Any environment where IPv4 was never deployed and IPv6 is the only protocol ever deployed

It was in response to a statement that IPv6-only could only mean an environment where IPv4 once existed and had been removed.

Owen