4 ms·

I disagree. You have to consider network effects. Even if IPv6 was completely perfect, switching on your own doesn't do any good. You need to get most of the ne

by phicoh 8y ago

I disagree. You have to consider network effects. Even if IPv6 was completely perfect, switching on your own doesn't do any good. You need to get most of the network to switch to get the benefits. Given that there is always a cost to switching, people will consider switching when continuing on the old path will become more costly than switching.

nothrabannosir 8y ago
>> ... the utter failure of v6. > Even if IPv6 was completely perfect... More specifically: "completely technologically perfect". Which is the point being made in this thread: the technical aspect is of only partial relevance. If IPv6 fails because of political problems, or "contextual ones" (like “we could make it technologically inferior but more readily backwards compatible; it would make it less awesome but easier for people to migrate”), then that is still "failure of IPv6". If IPv6 had been perfect, it would be fully backwards compatible, and there would be no market for IPv4 right now. Just because that isn't possible doesn't mean there isn't a middle ground.
- phicoh 8y ago
  It is easy enough to criticize the IETF and the wider IPv6 community for the mistakes they made. But as far as I know, nobody came up with a credible protocol that is fully backward compatible with IPv4. So, you can ask the IETF to come up with a magically protocol that has longer addresses and is still backward compatible with IPv4. But they are only human. So that kind of magic is not going to happen.
  - Aeolun 8y ago
    Wouldn’t a predefined mask for IPv6 addresses do exactly that? The last 32 bytes of the address could easily be an IPv4 address I should think.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      A mask like 0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:ffff:xxxx:xxxx/96?
    - Dagger2 8y ago
      Nope, because: - you would need to restrict yourself to an extremely tiny fraction of the v6 space that's the same size as the v4 space - you couldn't use any IPs that correspond to in-use v4 IPs because they would overlap - you couldn't use any IPs that correspond to unusable v4 IPs, for the same reasons you can't use them in v4 - you'd have to talk a protocol that looks the same as v4 on the wire, because otherwise v4 hosts won't be able to handle it You know what we call that? We call it IPv4.
- jodrellblank 8y ago
  If IPv6 fails because of political problems Every major OS, network device maker, service and program supports it. I can't imagine it "will fail" in any way where everyone goes "ok, forget IPv6, let's move on to IPv7 it's the new thing" and the world says "phew, at last!". > According to market researcher Gartner, over 1.5 billion smartphones were sold last year That's an IPv4 internet of address-needing devices every couple of years, just in smartphones. World IPv6 day was 8 years ago in 2011, and then Vint Cerf said there were no plans for an IPv7, and 8 years later there still isn't an IPv7 coming from the IETF. https://www.networkworld.com/article/2200118/router/cerf--future-of-internet-doesn-t-include-an-ipv7.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/2200118/router/cerf--fu... IPv6 can't "fail" for the same kind of reasons huge financial companies can't fail - there isn't an alternative.
  - yholio 8y ago
    Sure there is, it's called IPv4. For profit companies will continue to beat that dead horse with things like CGNAT for as long as IPv6 continues to fail. The failure is a process not an end state, IPv6 is falling for two decades now and the eventual complete deployment in the year 2040-2050 will be it's complete and giant failure, unless something else comes along to make it irrelevant.

by phicoh 8y ago

nothrabannosir 8y ago

>> ... the utter failure of v6. > Even if IPv6 was completely perfect... More specifically: "completely technologically perfect". Which is the point being made in this thread: the technical aspect is of only partial relevance. If IPv6 fails because of political problems, or "contextual ones" (like “we could make it technologically inferior but more readily backwards compatible; it would make it less awesome but easier for people to migrate”), then that is still "failure of IPv6". If IPv6 had been perfect, it would be fully backwards compatible, and there would be no market for IPv4 right now. Just because that isn't possible doesn't mean there isn't a middle ground.

phicoh 8y ago
It is easy enough to criticize the IETF and the wider IPv6 community for the mistakes they made. But as far as I know, nobody came up with a credible protocol that is fully backward compatible with IPv4. So, you can ask the IETF to come up with a magically protocol that has longer addresses and is still backward compatible with IPv4. But they are only human. So that kind of magic is not going to happen.
- Aeolun 8y ago
  Wouldn’t a predefined mask for IPv6 addresses do exactly that? The last 32 bytes of the address could easily be an IPv4 address I should think.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    A mask like 0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:ffff:xxxx:xxxx/96?
  - Dagger2 8y ago
    Nope, because: - you would need to restrict yourself to an extremely tiny fraction of the v6 space that's the same size as the v4 space - you couldn't use any IPs that correspond to in-use v4 IPs because they would overlap - you couldn't use any IPs that correspond to unusable v4 IPs, for the same reasons you can't use them in v4 - you'd have to talk a protocol that looks the same as v4 on the wire, because otherwise v4 hosts won't be able to handle it You know what we call that? We call it IPv4.
jodrellblank 8y ago
If IPv6 fails because of political problems Every major OS, network device maker, service and program supports it. I can't imagine it "will fail" in any way where everyone goes "ok, forget IPv6, let's move on to IPv7 it's the new thing" and the world says "phew, at last!". > According to market researcher Gartner, over 1.5 billion smartphones were sold last year That's an IPv4 internet of address-needing devices every couple of years, just in smartphones. World IPv6 day was 8 years ago in 2011, and then Vint Cerf said there were no plans for an IPv7, and 8 years later there still isn't an IPv7 coming from the IETF. https://www.networkworld.com/article/2200118/router/cerf--future-of-internet-doesn-t-include-an-ipv7.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/2200118/router/cerf--fu... IPv6 can't "fail" for the same kind of reasons huge financial companies can't fail - there isn't an alternative.
- yholio 8y ago
  Sure there is, it's called IPv4. For profit companies will continue to beat that dead horse with things like CGNAT for as long as IPv6 continues to fail. The failure is a process not an end state, IPv6 is falling for two decades now and the eventual complete deployment in the year 2040-2050 will be it's complete and giant failure, unless something else comes along to make it irrelevant.