Re: [v6ops] Thoughts about wider operational input

[Bob Hinden <[e-mail]>]

Brian,

I should probably know better to respond to this thread, but apparently not :-)

> On Mar 21, 2022, at 3:42 PM, Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> On 22-Mar-22 10:50, Fred Baker wrote:
>> Sent using a machine that autocorrects in interesting ways...
>>> On Mar 21, 2022, at 2:05 PM, Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>> 
>>> "Why didn't those idiots make IPv6 backward-compatible with IPv4?"
>> To which the obvious answer is “IPv4 isn’t forward compatible with anything. It was designed to be replaced.”

To add to what Fred said, IPv6 uses the transition mechanism that the Internet Protocol provided, that is the version number.

> 
> As has been said, in different words, many times on The Register forums. I think there are several IPv6ists who respond there, under various pseudonyms. (The Register is not a place where many people care to use real names.)
> 
> But unfortunately the usual reply is to repeat that we were idiots not to make IPv6 backwards-compatible (often accompanied by one of the many ideas proposed but found impossible in the early 1990s). Either that, or a plaintive "too hard" argument.
> 
> I agree with Jordi that multihoming is a genuine impediment. What isn't generally realised is that it's a problem of scale when considering at least 10,000,000 enterprises, much more than it's a problem of IPv6 itself.

In my view, and I think I am agreeing with Nick said, it’s not a technical problem that would be fixed by a technical feature.   IPv4 works for most enterprises today and they don’t see a need (aka business case) to do anything different.   The Enterprises who are thinking about moving to IPv6 are very large enterprises who can’t live within the limits of private IPv4 space.

I suspect these are the ones we should be talking to.

Bob



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