[ppml] IPv6>>32

[Michael.Dillon at radianz.com]

> For me, the sentiment derives from the discomfort of knowingly 
> deploying something that is (arguably) broken. 

I can understand this. It is common among technical people
and artists. You seek perfection. However, in management
one MUST become comfortable with deploying things that are
broken on a regular basis. You know the 80-20 rule? You can
gain 80% of the benefits at 20% of the costs. A manager is 
often faced with multiple projects competing for a limited
pool of resources. Add to this, the knowledge that the pool
of resources could be bigger in the future and, in fact,
current actions can lead to a bigger pool of resources. In 
such a scenario, if you can get something deployed that will
break in 60 years and it costs 20% of your resource pool, then
that is a bargain. The remaining resource pool can be used for
other important things, and during the 60 years there will
be multiple opportunities and additional resources available
to solve the problem, if, indeed, there is a problem. I'm 
reminded of London's Routemaster buses. These red double-decker
buses with the rear entrance were introduced in 1954 and expected
to last 25 years. 50 years later there were still hundreds of
them running in regular service throughout the city.

A prediction of breakage in 60 years does not mean that there
will be breakage in 60 years. It easy to make predictions
but it is not easy to foresee the real future.

> > ARIN should completely avoid this type of policymaking. It is
> > not the job of ARIN or any RIR to drive today's policy based upon
> > the hypothetical needs of people 60 years from now.
> 
> Hmm.  I would've thought this would be pretty close to the actual 
> definition of "stewardship".

No, I think it is closer to the definition of insanity.
Stewardship is not the same as conservation. Stewardship refers
to wise use of the resource. In my opinion, getting 60 years 
of use out of a network protocol is pretty darn good. As far as
I know there is no network protocol (or telecoms protocol) that
has survived that long other than Morse code.

--Michael Dillon