Subject: RE: How the IPnG effort was started

From: [email-masked] (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 10:31:15 -0500 (EST)

> From: "Christian Huitema" <[email-masked]>

This is a silly thing to be wasting time on (it's water long under the
bridge now - I was just struck by the power of the irony, and mentioned
it simply because of that), but:

    >> IPv6 exists because of a previous round of concern about IPv4
    >> address exhaustion, which was used by the proponents of yet
    >> another protocol that was going to "replace" IPv4 to push for
    >> their protocol's adoption

    > That is not quite what the minutes convey. The main argument behind
    > CLNP then was convergence ..
    > ...
    > For better or worse, [IPv6] was mostly defined as "just IPv4 with
    > larger addresses".

You are quite right that the rationale given for the adoption of CLNP
changed over time, and was originally rooted in the assumption that it
would become dominant (e.g. through government mandate and/or
procurement). However, I never denied that. 

The whole IPng process was clearly driven by concerns about address space
- which is exactly why IPv6 is, as you so precisely put it, "IPv4 with
larger addresses". Those concerns were also, *at the late stage of CLNP's
life*, the principal arguments for adoption of CLNP (which was, by then,
clearly failing to take off) - and as such, much was made of those
concerns by those who backed CLNP.

I merely claim that we probably wouldn't have had the IPng process
without the FUD about IPv4 raised by CLNP backers. Clearly, this is an
assertion which it's basically impossible to prove or disprove, and
therefore not worth going around and around over.

	Noel

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---

From: Aaron Falk <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 11:17:47 -0500

I'd like to suggest that this thread move to the internet-history
list.

(For those unfamiliar with this list, information is available at
http://www.postel.org/internet-history.htm)

--aaron

---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 Nov 2004 13:12:45 +0100

>http://www.postel.org/internet-history.htm)

Dear Aaron,
The work you do at www.postel.org is not only great to pay a tribute to 
pioneers. It gives past experience in a system where continuity is of the 
essence.

This threat over the past is extremely important for the future. It plainly 
shows something those who were involved apparently forget and other did not 
know.

It shows that the Internet community, as the international community had 
done ten years before, identified the same that:
- OSI brought an incitation to some developments and called for 
interfacing, but was not a replacement. Consensus.
- and a large addressing space. Consensus.

But that IETF having not to directly implement it, IETF overlooked the real 
problems: that the most important is not the number of addresses but their 
structure toward an operational and innovative numbering scheme and what it 
permits. A recent interview of Vint in Asia shows that has now the real 
questions we met 20 years ago. The French equivalent to the FCC runs right 
now a questionnaire with the same type of concerns.

The formula "IPv6 == just IPv4 with larger addresses" now accepted by two 
key persons who shared in the debate 15/10 years ago is a key point. It 
tells what the target was.

1) as Harald put it: this target has been roughly completed. So, IETF will 
not change IPv6, except if there is a new round of probably the same 
magnitude and duration.

2) as the world shows it in not buying it: that objective was _wrong_. 
Truly IPv6 offers larger addresses. But thats all. Harald is wrong when he 
talks (as most of us did) of an IPv6 Internet. IPv6 was "just" intended to 
be a smarter patch to IPv4 than NATs - and it is just that with some 
grounds lost to NATs because of its lateness. We still are under IPv4 
management and the world see no difference and feel (for the time being) 
that NATs deliver more.

May be Mobile Internet could be a new Internet? But Harald gave his point 
of view of this.

Now, where is the world? This threats shows that:

- we have 4 to 5 years to go before doom (the internet has taken such an 
importance that an addressing management failure is a world major problem 
like energy, ozone, water, etc.). I fully understand why Harald does not 
want to be reelected. I am interested to know who is to take the 
responsibility in front of the world and bare the blame (or hopefully save 
the day).

- 15 years ago - in this Internet technology - the problem of the 
addressing space blocking innovation was properly identified (you cannot 
innovate on imprecise grounds). It tells that it took at least 10 years to 
deliver the then chosen solution. The current threats pleading for IPv6 
then for at least IPv4 at the Washington IETF meeting, show that all this 
is not yet stabilized enough (even at IPv4) to be perceived as the 
smart-plug solution the world decision makers think it is. So, they just 
focus on the namespace 'which is a minor issue when compared to the 
addressing).

So it roughly tells that we are going into the wall.

There are three history proven ways out:

- IAB/IETF/IESG delivers a solution in the coming months. Can we see the 
motivation (RFC 3774), the imagination and the consensus.

- the ITU imposes its administration in the coming one or two years. The 
proposition would be late in the governance study scheme of UN. The 
opposition would be strong so it would call for the Govs to step in. They 
took three or four years to respond ICANN's call (may be through the final 
Tunis resolution). I do not see the weak Telcos alone, even at the ITU, to 
be able to impose IPv6 when they failed with ENUM.

- the users (market, atlarge, Govs) impose their solutions (USA have 
started with the DoD decisions over IPv6, China, Korea, .... but what will 
be the real impact. Possible new US Communication Act will only add to 
confusion as such revision usually impact). Patchwork and balkanization. 
They will be a blend of NAT, superNAT, OPES, patch over patches, and 
basically a superIPv8+IPv9. We had the 1985 move to X.121, the 1996 move to 
Internet IPv4 addressing, the 2005 ???

I am not sure I like this.

Question: Internet is catenet's concept of a networking of networks. If I 
come and tell RIRs that I have a non-IPv4, non-IPv6, non conflicting 
address, what will they say? As a user the response will probably the 
difference between a worldwide clean and quick continuity and a 
NAT/IPv8-9-etc. Interpatch.
jfc