[ppml] Policy Proposal: Expand timeframe of Additional Requests

[Lee Dilkie]

David Conrad wrote:
>
>> 3) History.  The history of technology change has been that as soon  
>> as something new is introduced, people start getting afraid of  
>> being left behind and they will jump on the new thing, even if the  
>> old thing works as well or even better.
>>     
>
> This does not appear to have impacted the uptake of IPv6.
>
>
>   
And this is where the earlier VHS vs BETAMAX analogy fails.

When two competing technologies are head to head at the same time, and
both offer (roughly) the same solution, your get these classic battles;
VHS vs BETAMAX, Blu-RAY vs HD_DVD and of course, IP vs (IPX, banyan,
X.25, SNA, the list goes on).

There was a clear winner (eventually) in all those.

However, comparing IPv6 to IPv4 isn't the same as VHS vs BETAMAX.
Imagine if only BETAMAX was available in the early 80's (late 70's?) and
VHS came along 10 years later. It offers no compelling reason to upgrade
since it only offers essentially the same feature set. It'd never even
get off the ground. For the consumer, a completely new technology with a
compelling advantage needed to come along before VHS was abandoned (DVD
was that).

I see IPv6 in the same boat, trying to compete with IPv4 10 years (okay,
probably like 25 years) later with essentially the same feature set.
That's a hard sell.

And folks. Please don't forget. The only migration strategy towards IPv6
is dual-stack. Folks are going to need both v6 and v4 addresses for a
long time, this isn't going to relieve pressure for v4 addresses.

-lee