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Yes, let's design the internet around keeping 90s routers running as long as possible. Excellent. Let's also design highways with a max speed of 20 MPH so we ca

by pie420 5y ago

Yes, let's design the internet around keeping 90s routers running as long as possible. Excellent. Let's also design highways with a max speed of 20 MPH so we can accommodate Model T's

jffry 5y ago
There's no way we could ever stop the world and get everybody to use a new protocol overnight. Attempting to change the format of an existing protocol in-place in a way that existing hardware and software cannot handle, would be an effort that's dead on arrival. The global transition to ipv6 is already hard enough, and that's with it designed as a separate protocol so that existing equipment that doesn't understand it can at least gracefully discard it instead of mishandling it.
jedberg 5y ago
Funny you should mention the Model T. We did the exact same thing with roads as we did with IPv6. We created a new type of road (highways) that the Model T could not go on. But the new cars can still use the old roads, albeit slower than their max speed. This is the same as IPv6 going through carrier grade NAT. Slowly over time the roads were upgraded, so now you can use mostly high speed roads to get between places and you don't really see Model Ts anymore because it's not convenient to avoid all the high speed roads.
Jtsummers 5y ago
The issue is replacement cost and feasibility. As roads got better pavement (or were more reliably paved) speed limits could increase. I still have some 20-30mph dirt roads near my home here (actually quite a few), but highways were specifically made to support higher speeds (longer straight sections, in sane places smoother curves). Notably, improving road quality did not obsolete the Model T (though it did become obsolete) on its own. It just made them particularly outdated when other, faster, options were now viable. Nothing has stopped making faster cars just as nothing (fundamentally) has stopped us from making a "better" Internet (supporting more addresses and other features). What hasn't been done is to say, "Ok, so we already have this massive hardware rollout but we're going to literally obsolete 99.99% of it overnight and cost everyone, home users, small businesses, governments, megacorps, billions or trillions to replace their hardware." Why didn't that happen? Because it would've been stupid. Instead we ended up with what's amounted to two Internets with bridges between them. The transition hasn't been smooth, but it has been happening.
OJFord 5y ago
A better analogy might be something like upgrading roads with the newly liberated fourth dimension; so mere three dimensional Model Ts - that people will try to use no matter your protest - are very unlikely to end up in the right place. (And not just Model Ts, but the entire twentieth century and a bit's worth of vehicles.)
- excalibur 5y ago
  Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads.

by pie420 5y ago

Yes, let's design the internet around keeping 90s routers running as long as possible. Excellent. Let's also design highways with a max speed of 20 MPH so we can accommodate Model T's

jffry 5y ago

There's no way we could ever stop the world and get everybody to use a new protocol overnight. Attempting to change the format of an existing protocol in-place in a way that existing hardware and software cannot handle, would be an effort that's dead on arrival. The global transition to ipv6 is already hard enough, and that's with it designed as a separate protocol so that existing equipment that doesn't understand it can at least gracefully discard it instead of mishandling it.

jedberg 5y ago

Funny you should mention the Model T. We did the exact same thing with roads as we did with IPv6. We created a new type of road (highways) that the Model T could not go on. But the new cars can still use the old roads, albeit slower than their max speed. This is the same as IPv6 going through carrier grade NAT. Slowly over time the roads were upgraded, so now you can use mostly high speed roads to get between places and you don't really see Model Ts anymore because it's not convenient to avoid all the high speed roads.

Jtsummers 5y ago

The issue is replacement cost and feasibility. As roads got better pavement (or were more reliably paved) speed limits could increase. I still have some 20-30mph dirt roads near my home here (actually quite a few), but highways were specifically made to support higher speeds (longer straight sections, in sane places smoother curves). Notably, improving road quality did not obsolete the Model T (though it did become obsolete) on its own. It just made them particularly outdated when other, faster, options were now viable. Nothing has stopped making faster cars just as nothing (fundamentally) has stopped us from making a "better" Internet (supporting more addresses and other features). What hasn't been done is to say, "Ok, so we already have this massive hardware rollout but we're going to literally obsolete 99.99% of it overnight and cost everyone, home users, small businesses, governments, megacorps, billions or trillions to replace their hardware." Why didn't that happen? Because it would've been stupid. Instead we ended up with what's amounted to two Internets with bridges between them. The transition hasn't been smooth, but it has been happening.

OJFord 5y ago

A better analogy might be something like upgrading roads with the newly liberated fourth dimension; so mere three dimensional Model Ts - that people will try to use no matter your protest - are very unlikely to end up in the right place. (And not just Model Ts, but the entire twentieth century and a bit's worth of vehicles.)

excalibur 5y ago
Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads.