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"IPv4 with bigger addresses" would never have been backwards compatible and would always have been a compatibility break and would always have a slow rollout.

"IPv4 with bigger addresses" would never have been backwards compatible and would always have been a compatibility break and would always have a slow rollout. The proposals that seemed backwards compatible were just aggressive CGNAT consolidating even more power in the hands of IPv4 address owners. That doesn't seem like a sustainable fix in the long run.

JohnFen 3y ago
> "IPv4 with bigger addresses" would never have been backwards compatible and would always have been a compatibility break True, but it would limit that break to a single thing. That's much easier to deal with than the whole basket of things that IPv6 brings with it.
- WorldMaker 3y ago
  Compatibility breaks are always headaches. There's not "just broke a 'single' thing" when it comes to compatibility breaks. That is why strict semver suggests a major bump no matter how "small" a compatibility break appears to the developer. There is no such thing as a "simple" compatibility break to downstream users. In general, despite the complex vocabulary about most of it, in many ways IPv6 is simpler than IPv4. Its header has fewer fields. Its QoL/QoS fields aren't accidental hacks on top of old debugging fields but intentionally designed fields for that very purpose. SLAAC is a simpler protocol than DHCPv4, though the algorithm sounds more complex at first. (DHCPv6 is basically as complex, but fewer devices and fewer subnets should need DHCPv6 in the first place.) Much of the "basket of things" that IPv6 brings with it are designed to remove complexity that has concreted around IPv4. They ripped the bandaid completely off with the backwards compatibility break that they made with IPv6, and apparently a lot of people loved the cute stickers they had applied on top of the bandaid. But at this point it is probably better for the skin below to heal without the bandaid than to continue to sticker and bandaid over that and let all that unnecessary glue fester in place. (To push such a metaphor almost to its breaking place.)
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > in many ways IPv6 is simpler than IPv4. It's not really about whether or not IPv6 is simpler than IPv4, though. It's about how painful moving from IPv4 to IPv6 is. And it's very painful. If the only thing that changed between the two was that the IP address space is bigger, it would reduce the pain of changing. I'm certainly not going to claim that my experience is representative of anyone except for me, but the reason that I'm not going to shift to IPv6 until I literally have no other choice is because doing so is an enormous undertaking. Since IPv6 doesn't bring me any benefit that I care about, there is no reason to do so unless I simply can't get on the internet without it anymore. Please note: I am not bashing IPv6 here, and I'm not saying that a change isn't needed. I'm just expressing some of the reasons I've seen why people resist changing to it, and that I think adopting it would have happened within a reasonable timeframe if it weren't as ambitious.
    - Dagger2 3y ago
      It's honestly not that hard. Looking at your other posts, you think it's hard because you're unfamiliar with it, because you're trying to overcomplicate it, and because you're trying to do everything all at once rather than gradually. None of these things are IPv6's fault. Hell, give me remote access to your network and I'll set it up for you -- at least enough to get you started on it if not 100% on every single thing. I don't expect you'll take me up on that offer, but it'd be easier to just do it than tell you about it, since you can't tell people anything: http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-people-anything/ http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-people-an...
    - bauruine 3y ago
      Why is it so painful for you? As someone that has been running everything dualstack for over a decade I'm seriously interested where people are struggling with it. The only pain I've ever seen is in corporate networks where all the tooling around the network management are IPv4 only but those would break even if you add a single bit to an IPv4 address.
      - JohnFen 3y ago

JohnFen 3y ago

> "IPv4 with bigger addresses" would never have been backwards compatible and would always have been a compatibility break True, but it would limit that break to a single thing. That's much easier to deal with than the whole basket of things that IPv6 brings with it.

WorldMaker 3y ago
Compatibility breaks are always headaches. There's not "just broke a 'single' thing" when it comes to compatibility breaks. That is why strict semver suggests a major bump no matter how "small" a compatibility break appears to the developer. There is no such thing as a "simple" compatibility break to downstream users. In general, despite the complex vocabulary about most of it, in many ways IPv6 is simpler than IPv4. Its header has fewer fields. Its QoL/QoS fields aren't accidental hacks on top of old debugging fields but intentionally designed fields for that very purpose. SLAAC is a simpler protocol than DHCPv4, though the algorithm sounds more complex at first. (DHCPv6 is basically as complex, but fewer devices and fewer subnets should need DHCPv6 in the first place.) Much of the "basket of things" that IPv6 brings with it are designed to remove complexity that has concreted around IPv4. They ripped the bandaid completely off with the backwards compatibility break that they made with IPv6, and apparently a lot of people loved the cute stickers they had applied on top of the bandaid. But at this point it is probably better for the skin below to heal without the bandaid than to continue to sticker and bandaid over that and let all that unnecessary glue fester in place. (To push such a metaphor almost to its breaking place.)
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > in many ways IPv6 is simpler than IPv4. It's not really about whether or not IPv6 is simpler than IPv4, though. It's about how painful moving from IPv4 to IPv6 is. And it's very painful. If the only thing that changed between the two was that the IP address space is bigger, it would reduce the pain of changing. I'm certainly not going to claim that my experience is representative of anyone except for me, but the reason that I'm not going to shift to IPv6 until I literally have no other choice is because doing so is an enormous undertaking. Since IPv6 doesn't bring me any benefit that I care about, there is no reason to do so unless I simply can't get on the internet without it anymore. Please note: I am not bashing IPv6 here, and I'm not saying that a change isn't needed. I'm just expressing some of the reasons I've seen why people resist changing to it, and that I think adopting it would have happened within a reasonable timeframe if it weren't as ambitious.
  - Dagger2 3y ago
    It's honestly not that hard. Looking at your other posts, you think it's hard because you're unfamiliar with it, because you're trying to overcomplicate it, and because you're trying to do everything all at once rather than gradually. None of these things are IPv6's fault. Hell, give me remote access to your network and I'll set it up for you -- at least enough to get you started on it if not 100% on every single thing. I don't expect you'll take me up on that offer, but it'd be easier to just do it than tell you about it, since you can't tell people anything: http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-people-anything/ http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-people-an...
  - bauruine 3y ago
    Why is it so painful for you? As someone that has been running everything dualstack for over a decade I'm seriously interested where people are struggling with it. The only pain I've ever seen is in corporate networks where all the tooling around the network management are IPv4 only but those would break even if you add a single bit to an IPv4 address.
    - JohnFen 3y ago