Biggest mistake for IPv6: It's not backwards compatible, developers admit

[Fred Baker]

On Mar 30, 2009, at 9:55 AM, Tom Vest wrote:
> On Mar 30, 2009, at 12:37 PM, Fred Baker wrote:
>> On Mar 30, 2009, at 9:27 AM, Joe Abley wrote:
>>> What is required is not for people (service architects, content  
>>> providers, access providers, users) to turn off IPv4 and turn on  
>>> IPv6, but instead to add IPv6 capability *in addition to* IPv4. If  
>>> IPv6 has a future in our lifetimes (and I think it does) it is in  
>>> an overwhelmingly dual-stack world, not a world of v6-only clients.
>>
>> I agree with you, with one exceptional point. At some point, IPv6  
>> deployment will be widespread enough that most people are running  
>> it. If that does not eventually become true, we never had a real  
>> problem in the first place - and I will argue that the only reason  
>> that IPv6 is at all an issue is that there is a problem. At the  
>> point where most folks have deployed IPv6, just as happened with  
>> DECNET, IPX, and others, IPv4 will become non-essential.
>
> Hi Fred,
>
> Does this mean that you completely discount the possibility that the  
> perpetuation of IPv4 might represent a "local maximum," as someone  
> put it in San Francisco -- i.e., an attractive short-term but  
> inferior long-term solution, but one that once adopted could be very  
> difficult or impossible to escape?

I don't. There are a number of things I don't discount. However, as  
your further comment details, the local maximum is not a rational  
model. As I just said in an email to Udo, I am frustrated with  
people's irrationality, but I none-the-less hope that business  
rationality will eventually force an outcome that makes sense. Color  
me insane.