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IPv6 *is* like AMDIPv6 *is* like AMDPosted Jan 27, 2011 10:06 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252)In reply to: IPv6 *is* like AMD by bronson Parent article: LCA: IP address exhaustion and the end of the open net
AMD64 in 64 bit mode can still run 32 bit software. With 32-bit OS? No, it can't. With 64-bit OS you can run 32 bit software but your 32-bit shared libraries can not talk with your 64-bit shared libraries - everything must be recompiled or proxy must be used. ipv6 just chucks ipv4 out the window. No. If update an OS on the router it can drive IPv4 and IPv6. And yes, for them to interoperate you'll need to recompile everything and/or use some proxies. See the difference now? Let me think about it... 1st try. Can you use new address space without core infrastructure update? 2nd try. Can you use new old clients with core infrastructure update? 3rd try. Can the old client talk with the new ones directly? Hmm... Funny... All the questions have the same answer... So... where is the difference?
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IPv6 *is* like AMD Posted Jan 27, 2011 10:29 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
The difference is that if I buy amd64 and decide to chuck 64-bit os on it, I won't have to touch my config files at all - they will just work from my 32-bit backups. Ditto most of my data. Also, my old apps will just work. And new ones too. Guess what? That's exactly what I did.
Right now, I have an OS that supports IPv6. It is useless to me without reconfiguration because I simply cannot participate in the IPv6. And why would I want to? This is a whole other network that has nothing on it. And that's because other people see the same.
In summary, amd64 is an inclusive technology. IPv6 is an island on its own.
You asked and answered a bunch of useless technical question, but you fail to see that the answer to a very simple and common question is still the main problem with IPv6. Why does everyone already connected to the net have to reconfigure and essentially run two setups? I can answer that for you if you like. Because someone wasn't thinking when they designed IPv6.
IPv6 *is* like AMD Posted Jan 27, 2011 10:46 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] You asked and answered a bunch of useless technical question, but you fail to see that the answer to a very simple and common question is still the main problem with IPv6. Wow! Yes, I fail to see that. You see, we have the situation today: Sorry, but I try to see how 0.05% can be larger then 99% again and again - and fail to see that. Care to explain? You have strange mathematics if you think it's "the main problem with IPv6"... Why does everyone already connected to the net have to reconfigure and essentially run two setups? Because IPv6 solves bunch of other problems by going this route. Sure, it introduced inconvenience for some 0.03%-0.05% of users, but this is minor issue. Because someone wasn't thinking when they designed IPv6. On the contrary - they thought about it and it was obvious back then that it's a minor issue. The fact that it's minor issue is even more obvious today.
IPv6 *is* like AMD Posted Jan 27, 2011 11:05 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Minor issue of complete isolation from where the real net is :-)
The fact that 99% of users have to ask anything _is_ the failure. These 99% would have been _on_ IPv6 now, had it been for a proper plan.
IPv6 *is* like AMD Posted Jan 27, 2011 12:16 UTC (Thu) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link]
> These 99% would have been _on_ IPv6 now, had it been for a proper plan.
No, they wouldn't, because their ISP still would not have IPv6. What is your difficulty with seeing that?
IPv6 *is* like AMD Posted Jan 27, 2011 12:33 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
The difficulty is that the current plan produced zero results so far. Any _other_ plan would have been as good as that and most likely a lot better.
You are talking about the current situation as it was a success. And yet, both people talking about it had nothing but criticism for it.
But let's leave that aside. My bullshit detector tells me should common sense have been followed, I would be able to ping ipv6.google.com. And yet I cannot.
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 27, 2011 14:17 UTC (Thu) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link]
I am not saying the current situation is a success. I am saying that DJB's plan would fail in the same way as the current situation.
I actually believe that with DJB's plan the situation would be *worse*. The more I look at it, the more I see in it an analogue of Greenspun's Tenth Law: it would have been an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of IPv6. I try to imagine how its deployment would happen, and for every problem I see, the solution would be very similar to how IPv6 solved its own similar problem.
And in the end you have something with variable-sized addresses (even if it is just two sizes, it is still variable-sized), a very large number of deaggregated routes (I would expect it to cause the size of the routing tables in the default-free zone to double), and lacking several of the enhancements introduced in IPv6.
In DJB's plan, you have two classes of addresses: "new" (extended) and "old" addresses. In the same way, you have two classes of packets: "new" (with extended addresses) and "old" (normal IPv4). If a "new" address wants to communicate to an "old" address, or an "old" address wants to communicate with a "new" address, they have to use "new" packets. But to use "new" packets, EVERY SINGLE ROUTER in the path between them has to be able to understand "new" packets, else it will be dropped. How do you solve it?
A simple way is to compute a separate route which has only routers which understand "new" packets (this has to be done also for "old" destinations, because the source address could have to be "new" and thus also need the "new" packet). Now you have a situation similar to IPv6/IPv4 dual-stack.
Another option would be to tunnel automatically. Suppose you have a "new" host sending to a host with an "old" address. It has no way of knowing the host with the "old" address can understand "new" packets, so you need some crazy sort of NAT (here we see one point where DJB's solution is inferior - with the current situation, you know by the type of address whether the target host can understand it or not). But suppose that the target host understands "new" packets (or that you do not care if it does not). You send the packet, with a "new" source address, to the host with the "old" target address. Suppose some router in the path does not understand "new" packets, but your tunneling solution can work around that (by encapsulating the packet within an "old" packet, or by the construction of the packet itself). Where will the recipient send the reply to? It has to be tunneled; what will be the "old" address in the "old" outer packet? One simple solution is to embed this target within the "new" address, and now you have something similar to 6to4.
With all this, what is the incentive for ISPs, and equipment manufacturers, and in fact everyone else to upgrade to something which understands the "new" packets, "new" address format, and so on? After all, "old" addresses keep working, so why not just get a set of "old" addresses? And if everyone has a set of "old" addresses, why waste money upgrading the core? This is the same situation we have right now with IPv6.
Normal equipment upgrades will not be enough; with IPv6, we still have (as others have commented) new equipment with no IPv6 support, and IPv6 is simpler to implement. It is a separate protocol, so the code can be added separately, instead of having to change everything which touches IPv4 - which for a router is a lot of things. In fact, this is what Microsoft did with Windows XP (you have an IPv6 addon).
And 8 years is not nearly enough. Just for the end hosts (which tend to be easier), how long it took between IPv6 being designed and Windows Vista being released? As mentioned above, XP would not have it, since it could not be an addon. Worse, since it touches everything, it is possible that not even Vista would have it. Not even mentioning the backwards compatibility nightmare with legacy applications.
This all is just barely scratching the surface. It would be a fascinating experiment to actually write down the specifications for a "IPv4+" protocol, imagining how it would work in every situation. Perhaps we could even learn some things from it. It could even help with the design of future networking protocols, either as an example of what to do or as an example of what not to do. But it would not help with the current situation.
On a lighter-hearted note, http://xkcd.com/386/.
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 27, 2011 19:47 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
I am not a big fan of DJB, and his 'plan' is not fleshed out 100%, but I really do thing that something close to what he was talking about is what was needed (see my thoughts at http://lwn.net/Articles/424889/ for a way to do the encapsulation)
one of the reasons that it took so long to get IPv6 into operating systems (why win98 doesn't support it for example) is because the IPv6 standard is so large and hard to get right. it doesn't just solve the address space problem (proposals to do that were rejected), it adds the kitchen sink of new a wonderful ideas that the researchers at the time thought would be great things to have in a network protocol.
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 27, 2011 22:06 UTC (Thu) by lutchann (subscriber, #8872) [Link] Your attitude of the IPv6 standard is so large and hard to get right and having to run dual stack is considerably more expensive and complicated than just running IPv4 suggests you really don't have much experience with IPv6. Yet you're confident that even an idiot could have come up with a simple extension to IPv4 that would have solved the address exhaustion problem and everyone would have enthusiastically adopted it. If you want to flesh out your proposed IPv4 extensions for how IPv6 "should have been", I'm sure we would have more to debate, but for now I'm going to lump you with the rest of the "I hate upgrades, why can't my vendor make a magic box to fix this for me" crowd.
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 27, 2011 22:18 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
IPv6 is not an upgrade. It's a new setup. To see what? The 3 sites currently running on IPv6? Ergo the objections.
All of your comments suggest that you have way too much experience with IPv6, so you have become fond of it, although it's useless shit in it's present form. It happens. Most people just want their computers connected to the net. Yeah, I know - that common sense thing. Apologies from the commoners, your highness! ;-)
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 27, 2011 23:08 UTC (Thu) by lutchann (subscriber, #8872) [Link]
*shrug* The market will decide. Providers will fix the address exhaustion problem with the cheapest solution that their customers will accept, which may or may not involve IPv6.
But it's insulting for you, dlang, DJB, or anyone else to walk in after a decade or more of development and say, "You guys are idiots. I haven't really thought it through, but my solution is way better. Too bad you didn't ask for my help from the beginning, because it's too late to do it my way now, and you'll just have to live with the shame of knowing I was right and you were wrong."
I mean, seriously. That's pretty immature.
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 27, 2011 23:25 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
for some of us it's not just waling in after two decades of development and saying 'you should have done this', many of us have been saying that the IPv6 'migration plan' was bogus for many years.
there are even people who have been saying this (some of them very vocally) since the plan was presented, before it was voted on.
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 27, 2011 23:38 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Yet it was voted on and accepted by IETF. DJB's plain failed to do even that. Any transition depends on acceptance. Which plan is better: the one which was adopted by committee or the one which was adopted by few fanboys? Yes, the committee is not always right (sometimes industry implements something totally different from what the IETF or ISO proposes), but current trends show the situation clearly: IETF's plan is adopted by millions while DJB's plan was not adopted by anyone (I know few crazy fanboys who talk about it constantly but noone who ever tried to actually implement it). So if our current translation plan is "failure" DJB's plan is "failure of such an epic proportion that it's not even funny".
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 28, 2011 0:17 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> Which plan is better: the one which was adopted by committee or the one which was adopted by few fanboys?
> So if our current translation plan is "failure" DJB's plan is "failure of such an epic proportion that it's not even funny".
So, people that were warning about the dangers of sub-prime mortgage markets, default swaps, pyramid selling etc. (i.e. the plan that was _not_ put in action) are a failure of epic proportions? Not the ones that caused the GFC? You are really funny.
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 28, 2011 0:44 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] So, people that were warning about the dangers of sub-prime mortgage markets, default swaps, pyramid selling etc. (i.e. the plan that was _not_ put in action) are a failure of epic proportions? Sure. Not the ones that caused the GFC? "The ones that caused the GFC" architected the Reaganomics to kill the USSR. Plan successed brilliantly, but GFC become unevitable at this point. "People that were warning about the dangers of sub-prime mortgage markets, default swaps, pyramid selling" and other "atrocities" just described what they see - they had no idea what they are talking about, why the structure they are talking about was created and how it works in first place. All these "atrocities" posponed the GFC by about 3-5 years, but made it more profound. Was is good trade-off? Well, it's hard to say, but it gave people few more years of respite before decade (or may be two) of suffering. Just like with IPv6: people who are moving it forward are solving real problems while clueless people like DJB complain that the plan has unintended consequences. Well, duh - but what is your plan?
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 28, 2011 0:59 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> Well, duh - but what is your plan?
Here is my plan. I have this program called ping on my system. With it, I can check whether my Internet connection works. I tried it with ipv6.google.com, but it didn't work. I'm pretty sure my connection works (it's been on for many years now). I can also ping pretty much everything out there. So, it must me some kind of a software problem.
I'd like to get a series of software upgrades so that my connection works with ipv6.google.com. Yeah, I know - I can't get that. It was a rhetorical request anyway.
So, back to the real world. My plan is to wait and see. Maybe my ISP will do something so that I can really see IPv6 world without wasting hours and hours on currently useless effort of enabling IPv6. Maybe I won't need to because they'll just whack several layers of NAT in between. I dunno.
Or maybe they'll tell me I have to do all this useless work after all. I'll have to "connect again" although I have a perfectly good connection.
That's my plan. Pretty much anything goes. Isn't it grand?
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 28, 2011 1:33 UTC (Fri) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link]
> I'd like to get a series of software upgrades so that my connection works with ipv6.google.com. Yeah, I know - I can't get that.
Actually, you can. If someone made a software upgrade which installed and enabled teredo (which needs no configuration to work), your connection would work with ipv6.google.com. On Windows, there is no need to install teredo at all, just enable it - and I heard some Bittorrent clients did enable it for you automatically. And teredo works perfectly with ipv6.google.com.
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 28, 2011 1:57 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
OK, one problem solved. And people will then be able to access my IPv4 addressed site too over IPv6? My firewall will work? And all my services will be reconfigured? I think not.
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 28, 2011 2:53 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> OK, one problem solved.
Actually, scrap that. The ping would not have come from my IPv4 address, so it doesn't really count.
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 27, 2011 23:43 UTC (Thu) by lutchann (subscriber, #8872) [Link]
During the many years you and others were complaining about IPv6 being bogus, why didn't anybody come up with alternative solutions to the address exhaustion problem? It sounds like you've had plenty of time.
The very fact that no credible alternatives to IPv6 have gained traction (at least since NAT appeared in the mid-'90s) kind of suggests that the problem is not as easy to solve as you insist.
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 28, 2011 0:12 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> During the many years you and others were complaining about IPv6 being bogus, why didn't anybody come up with alternative solutions to the address exhaustion problem? It sounds like you've had plenty of time.
People did come up with alternative ideas, they were not accepted. Sometimes such mistakes happen. For instance, we had this thing called GFC in 2008. Huge carnage all around the world, caused by a similarly bad plan.
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 28, 2011 0:06 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Oh, sorry. The grand plan forged 20 years ago that produced nothing thus far is a great success. Just like Itanium. :-)
Nobody is calling anyone an idiot. It just a bad, bad plan that didn't really work.
How do I know this? I cannot ping ipv6.google.com and I am connected to the Internet right now. It's that simple.
But, forget DJB, me, dlang and the rest of the "unimportant" folk. Cerf and Huston are saying the exact same thing, just a touch more politically correct.
To quote Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4_address_exhaustion): "By early 2012, new devices and services are expected to appear on the Internet that are only reachable by IPv6. These will only be accessible from the IPv4 Internet if older hosts that cannot implement IPv6 utilize special translator gateway services."
So, the grand plan for a clean new protocol needs "emulators" to work. Simply hilarious!
I know that things will eventually sort themselves out. They always do. That does not mean we are not allowed to criticise a bad plan.
Well, yes... Posted Jan 28, 2011 0:31 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Oh, sorry. The grand plan forged 20 years ago that produced nothing thus far is a great success. Just like Itanium. :-) Sorry, but there is a difference: Itanium was great success for a time - before AMD started selling Opterons. When Opteron outsold Itanium is was easy to see and say that Itanium is failure - but not before. Now, where is your alternative to IPv6 with more users then IPv6 (or at least with estimates which show that it'll overcome number of IPv6 deployments any time soon). Till such alternative materializes DJBs plan is just a useless rant. Nobody is calling anyone an idiot. It just a bad, bad plan that didn't really work. Why do you say it didn't work? Where is your alternative which pushes IPv6 away? So, the grand plan for a clean new protocol needs "emulators" to work. Simply hilarious! It's sad, not hilarious, but it's no different from AMD64, for example: without syscall 32bit emulation layer your old programs no longer work. And your 32bit drivers no longer work period.
Well, yes... Posted Jan 28, 2011 0:42 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> Itanium was great success for a time
Hey, when did we switch to stand up comedy? I wasn't warned! Good one - love it. ;-)
> Why do you say it didn't work?
Remember that ping6 I did to ipv6.google.com? It says network unreachable. I'm pretty sure I'm connected. Not sure what's going on there... :-)
> Where is your alternative which pushes IPv6 away?
I don't want to push it away. I'd like to use it. But I can't.
> without syscall 32bit emulation layer your old programs no longer work. And your 32bit drivers no longer work period.
Yes they do. On my 32-bit OS running on amd64.
Oh, and on 64-bit, I didn't even know I had 32bit emulation layer (OK, I did, but I didn't have to know) and they still worked. Good folk at Red Hat and Microsoft did all that for me. So sad they couldn't reuse my IPv4 address to use on IPv6.
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 27, 2011 21:54 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> But to use "new" packets, EVERY SINGLE ROUTER in the path between them has to be able to understand "new" packets, else it will be dropped. How do you solve it?
You are saying this like it's not the case with the current plan. Every single router needs to understand the new way. Of course.
But guess what, right now, all these supposed routers have _nothing_ to route, because nobody even has an IPv6 address. Should the other plan been followed, _everyone_ would already have one (i.e. their old IPv4 address) and _everyone_ would be capable of sending such packets (current situation where I have unconfigured, parellel IPv6 stack means nothing - I cannot use it as is). And even if they do have an IPv6 address now, it's useless - there is nothing to see with IPv6.
In the alternative scenario, ISPs have an _incentive_ to be able to route IPv6 - all of their current and prospective _customers_ are on it. Right now, they don't.
So, of course they would have made sure that every single router can route. What better alternative would they have? Build layers of NAT when everyone already is on IPv6? What the hell for?
Also note that issuing IPv6 addresses to new customers is a no brainer. Issuing IPv6 addresses to new customers now is what - interoperability failure?
> Suppose you have a "new" host sending to a host with an "old" address. It has no way of knowing the host with the "old" address can understand "new" packets
Of course it has. Everyone has been upgraded already. Any destination that didn't (there would be no reason for them not to - they would get all this as part of regular updates) would be simply unreachable for "new" hosts. The amount of those would be very small indeed.
You see, one of the main problems with the current plan is that IPv6 is the "other" thing. The other network config nobody understands. The other firewall nobody understands. The other routing config nobody understands. The other thing nobody cares about. Should IPv6 have been "the" thing, people with networks that "do" things (i.e. not ISP) would automatically care for it. It would be their one and only network, they spent all of their time building. You think they would not want their ISPs to route this?
There would be no 99% of users that are supposed to ask their ISPs to give them an IPv6 address. All these folks would _be_ IPv6 users already.
> And 8 years is not nearly enough.
The problem was identified 20 years ago. DJB (who I am not particularly big fan of) wrote his piece 8 years ago as a reaction to a disastrous plan unfolding right in front of his eyes. So, your timeline is not quite right. There would have been even more time to do this.
You are saying that you see this upgrade path as the same failure. You know what, this is 100% incorrect. At least everyone would have their host configured for IPv6 _right_ _now_, even if routing wasn't done yet. At least there would be an incentive to turn the pressure up on ISPs, so that the problem gets solved. Precisely because all of the edge (where the value is) would be done and ready. In the end, ISPs have to route the traffic for their customers - what else are they going to do?
Current plan produced no such incentive. That's exactly why ISPs are talking of layers of NAT and what not.
> On a lighter-hearted note, http://xkcd.com/386/.
Yeah, unfortunately in this case, it's not you or anyone else commenting here, but rather folks supposedly in charge of making things work. Or should I say, not work. :-)
But you are right. I should not post on this topic any more. Maybe I should just acknowledge that the current situation is a wonderful success. Never mind that Cerf and Huston are telling us it's a bloody disaster. Hey, what do they now?
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 27, 2011 23:10 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] But guess what, right now, all these supposed routers have _nothing_ to route, because nobody even has an IPv6 address. Sure they have. They have many IPv6 addresses. One comes from EUI-64 via MAC address in your Ethernet card, another via 6to4 assignment, etc. They all are equally useless if your ISP does not support IPv6. Should the other plan been followed, _everyone_ would already have one (i.e. their old IPv4 address) and _everyone_ would be capable of sending such packets (current situation where I have unconfigured, parellel IPv6 stack means nothing - I cannot use it as is). Sure it's capable of sending packets! You can easily do that right now. The problem is: nobody is listening. How exactly addition of yet-another-useless-IPv6-address was supposed to solve the problem is mystery to me. And even if they do have an IPv6 address now, it's useless - there is nothing to see with IPv6. Bingo! And DJB's plan does not change anything. Actually it's easy to see why DJB's plan is epic fail. The most IETF (or any other organization) can do is publish some specifications. I can do the same, you can do the same, everyone can write them. The question after that becomes the following: will anyone implement them or not. Guess what: noone implemented DJB specifications so they failed. It's as simple as that. I still wonder what we are discussing here. Government intervention? You don't need DJB's plan for that. Government may simple mandate switch to IPv6 by the given date. Voluntary cooperation? Does not work - DJB's plan was not implemented, right? In the alternative scenario, ISPs have an _incentive_ to be able to route IPv6 - all of their current and prospective _customers_ are on it. Right now, they don't. What alternative scenario? One where DJB's plan is published under IETF name? Where is the evidence that plan rejected when it was published on DJB's site will be accepted under IETF's name? Magical letters I E T F were unable to push other plans - why do you think they may push DJB's plan? So, of course they would have made sure that every single router can route. What better alternative would they have? Build layers of NAT when everyone already is on IPv6? What the hell for? To make customers happy? Why do you think all these TCP/IP networks were built when everyone was on IPX? The answer is simple: these IPX addresses were unroutable. Guess what: these uberperfect DJB's magic addresses are just as unroutable today... well, some of them are routable: the ones which belong to IPv4 namespace. And to use them all these layers of NATs are built. Also note that issuing IPv6 addresses to new customers is a no brainer. Interesting idea. How come it's "no brainer"? As long as you have IPv4 addresses you don't need IPv6 in any shape or form: exist IPv4 infrastructure works just fine. But how to assign these "no brainer" DJB's IPv6 numbers when there are no more IPv4 addresses? > Suppose you have a "new" host sending to a host with an "old" address. It has no way of knowing the host with the "old" address can understand "new" packets Blatant lie. DJB published his rant. Noone upgraded. End of story. Any destination that didn't (there would be no reason for them not to - they would get all this as part of regular updates) would be simply unreachable for "new" hosts. Ah... so you just ignore these poor souls who's ISP decided to ignore IPv6. Ok. The amount of those would be very small indeed. if 99% is "very small indeed" then 99.7% is simply "small" so we can consider IPv6 transformation finished. Somehow I don't feel like it's the case. Should IPv6 have been "the" thing, people with networks that "do" things (i.e. not ISP) would automatically care for it. How do you propose to do that? By writing rants on different sites? Does not work - as your own experience shows. And IETF does not have the power to enforce anything. It would be their one and only network, they spent all of their time building. You think they would not want their ISPs to route this? I don't think they'll not want to route this. I know they'll not route this. ISPs routinely ignore advances in the network technology unless they are under extreme pressure from customers. Think ECN. They are in business of making money, they are not in business of network advancement. routinely fail to support existing protocols like stop thing like SMTP or CIFS from working over the Internet. Why will they want to support some weird useless yet resource sucking extension? They don't - and this is just as true today without IETF endorcement and it'll be true in the alternate history with IETF endorcement. DJB's plan has failed - it failed to attract even few IETF developers so it never had any hope of success. In some alternate universe where people's brains are wired differently and where all members of IETF are enthusiastic endorsers of DJB's plan it may work, but in our universe it's doomed.DJB (who I am not particularly big fan of) wrote his piece 8 years ago as a reaction to a disastrous plan unfolding right in front of his eyes. Viewed as bit of fiction it's interesting work. Viewed as real plan it's utter failure. The very fact that DJB is rare supporter of it's plan shows how little hope there was for it's success. Sure, sometimes people miss obvious thing and it's enough for one person to find it - and then it's enthusiastically endorsed and changes the world. DJB's plan does not belong to this category - so it failed. At least everyone would have their host configured for IPv6 _right_ _now_, even if routing wasn't done yet. How can this change anything? Try simple experiment: type "ipconfig" on any Windows system and press Enter. You'll see many IPv6 addresses assigned to your system. You can even use them to connect with some other systems on the same network. What you can not do is to use them to talk with other systems over the Internet - and DJB's plan can not change it. At least there would be an incentive to turn the pressure up on ISPs, so that the problem gets solved. Today I have 3 IPv6 addresses (because I have three network adapters on my Windows system). DJB's plan will give me 6. Why do you think I'll want to use the last 3 more often then the first three? Note that three IPv4 address I have are 192.168.1.1, 192.168.42.3 and 10.0.0.4 so DJB's plan will give me something like 0::c0a8:101, 0::c0a8:2a02 and 0::a00:4 - and these same IPv6 addresses will be assigned to thousands (if not millions) computers in the world. What kind of use can I expect from these addresse? Precisely because all of the edge (where the value is) would be done and ready. The edge is in pretty good shape today. Not perfect, but good. 90% of nodes are ready to use IPv6. But without changes in core all this is pointless. DJB's plan failed to change anything there. Current plan produced no such incentive. That's exactly why ISPs are talking of layers of NAT and what not. They are not talking. They are implementing them. In fact in most countries around the world NATs were part of the life lond before pointless DJB rant. DJB sceme gives these users only pointless numbers which are not useful at all. Yeah, unfortunately in this case, it's not you or anyone else commenting here, but rather folks supposedly in charge of making things work. There are no such folks. There are folks which are guessing how it all should fit together, but there are noone "in charge" - that's why DJB's plan is so pointless: if someone is in charge - all that compatibility cruft is not needed, if noone is in charge it does not do anything useful at all - it just gives me useless numbers like 0::c0a8:101 which can not be used with IPv6 in any shape or form. And in both cases it's useless.
Why DJB's plan fail Posted Jan 28, 2011 0:19 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> but there are noone "in charge"
I think that bit is pretty obvious. ;-)
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