Mysterious missing DHCPv6 feature, was Re: How does one obtain an IPv6 DNS server when VPNing to an ASA?

[Benedikt Stockebrand]

Hi David and list,

David Barak <thegameiam at yahoo.com> writes:

> toMAYto toMAHto.

this isn't elementary school.

> One of the things about IPv4+DHCP which helped it really take off is
> the ability of providers + enterprises to regulate and monetize
> their interactions with their downstreams.

Indeed.  

They only started to offer IP at all when their various proprietary
services (BTX in Germany, Minitel in France, CompuServe, AOL, MSN in
the US/worldwide, and so on) lost customers at a breathtaking speed.

And then they got the addresses from the RIRs for free and, at least
here in Germany, charged end customers 135 DM (roughly equivalent to
EUR 100 (USD 160?) these days) per month for a single static address.

The traditional carriers have quite a track history of making as much
money as they can with as little effort as possible.

> The IPv6 designers, in their infinite wisdom, chose to {ignore
> |disregard} the desires of organizations which have made significant
> infrastructure investments in this.

The IETF meetings are open to everyone willing to participate.  Those
enterprises should blame themselves for not bothering about IPv6 for
so long.

If there's one party that may be involuntarily underrepresented, then
it's the end users, who largely lack both the funding and technical
expertise to participate.

> In that vein, they chose to make centralized decisions
> necessarily decentralized.

Anybody is free to design and implement their own protocols.

But unless customers have changed since the early 1990s I doubt that
that protocol not generally supported are a feasible business model.

> This is viewed as an improvement by some, but certainly not by all.

Any change to the existing Internet, especially if its as "radical" as
IPv6, is a disadvantage to the organizations "which have made
significant infrastructure investments in this".

This is especially so because the Internet *is* changing, and if those
organizations believe they can stop these changes, they'll be overrun
by a new generation of better-value-for-less-money providers.

Tough, but that's the way how business in a free market works.

> Are you honestly suggesting that this should be swallowed without
> comment?

"Comment" is ok...

> What if the design decisions are in fact bad? 

... and so is asking these questions---in the right place ...

> Why not try to fix the brokenness?

... but showing up after ten or more years complaining that one's
existing business model isn't protected is not.

IPv6 deployment is long overdue.  Coming up with reasonings "but we
can do this slightly better if we do it another way" however is pretty
embarrassing at best.


Cheers,

    Benedikt

-- 
			 Business Grade IPv6
		    Consulting, Training, Projects

Benedikt Stockebrand, Dipl.-Inform.   http://www.benedikt-stockebrand.de/