[ppml] back to the IPv6 Policy questions

[Mury]

Barbara,

With all due respect, how can you talk about policy without clarifying the
"merits?"

If people don't even understand how IPv6 works, which is no fault of their
own, how can they suggest policy revisions.

Would you agree that parents talking about how late a child can stay out
is a matter of policy?  Do you make that choice purely on how old the
child is, or on factors like if they have a license to drive, which
friends they are going to be with, what's the activity, what's the weather
going to be like later?

People can't make good judgements about IPv6 allocations until they know
how things such as renumbering actually happen with IPv6.  And there is a
significant amount of confusion regarding that.

People don't want to invest gobs of time and money into rolling out IPv6
because of the ambiguity in pricing and the lack of permanency of the
allocation.

I certainly could suggest some policy changes, but perhaps the person who
brought it up before is more on target.  ARIN probably should set aside
some money to educate the community on the ins and outs of IPv6.

Yesterday I talked to a guy who runs the largest computer training school
in Minnesota.  Microsoft, Novell, Cisco, LANS, WANS, software, hardware,
you name it.  I asked him what he knew about IPv6.  He knew it was
necessary because we are dealing with a saturation problem with IPv4, he
knew it was 128bits, and that's about it.

If he doesn't understand it how many people out there do?  It also means
that people attending classes there are not asking questions about it or
requesting any training.

To me it seems you can go 2 routes to stimulate IPv6 growth.

1) Try to educate a broader base of network admins about it's merits and
get more people thinking about it.

2) Or, clarify some issues with a core group of people (LIRs) and get it
in their hands with as few obstacles as possible as long as the allocation
won't jeprodize things down the road.  In addition, make it easy to get a
mirco-allocation /48 for those people who don't qualify for a /32.  Give
the IP space to them with the stipulation that they have to renumber into
their LIRs block within 5 years.

In both cases I think education is very important.  There's too much
mis-information floating around out there.

Mury

On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Barbara Roseman wrote:

> We seem to be drifting off topic into a discussion of IPv6's actual merits.
> Please take that discussion off-list, or to an appropriate v6 discussion forum.
>
> As for the topic that started this off, is there any evidence that the
> current policy is discouraging the adoption of IPv6?
>
> I'd ask John to state whether anyone he's working with has actually had an
> application for IPv6 addresses rejected, and I'd like to ask ARIN's
> registration services if they find themselves rejecting applications for
> not meeting the proper criteria as ISPs as opposed to end-users.
>
> If we need to do some education about how one qualifies for v6 space, that
> is one problem.  If we need to change language or substance of the v6
> policy, that is a different problem. I'd like to get a clearer picture of
> which problem we're actually facing.
>
> -Barb
> At 02:12 AM 1/9/2003 -0600, Mury wrote:
>
> > > But the point is, you still have to syncronize the event of switching
> > > routers and switching the DNS data, if you don't have the opportunity
> > > to overlap.
> >
> >I don't think I understand what you are saying.  We switch routers and DNS
> >data every day.  It's rarely a problem if you know ahead of time.
> >
> > > And if an ISP goes bankrupt without notice (yes, it happens) and you
> > > suddenly have to switch to another, how do you restore your DNS IPs
> > > when you can't get any verification because your GTLD A records still
> > > point to the old ones?
> >
> >Of course ISPs go bankrupt.  They usually keep operating however.  Even
> >so, if they were to shut their doors completely it would be awesome to be
> >able to simply change a couple lines in a router and in a DNS server than
> >the total nightmare you can have with having to renumber with IPv4.
> >
> >Mury
>