[ppml] getting converts to V6

[Cliff Bedore]

I am a latecomer to this group but have been on the internet since 1990
or so and have a single grandfathered Class C address.  I see a lot of
ideas proposed to get v4 extended and v6 started.  Most seem hard or
convoluted to implement.

Right now I have a no fee grandfathered Class C and it will probably do
me until I retire.  To do anything with V6, I'd have to get involved
with lots of paperwork and fees.  I have absolutely no incentive to go
to v6.  On the other hand, I'd like to work with v6 just to get it
working and understand it.

If there is really a desire to get v6 started, ARIN should give every
entity that has existing IPv4 addresses equivalent IPv6 addresses under
whatever provisions they are under now, including no fees for
grandfathered PI addresses like mine.

The rationale is as follows.  Most of the early adopters (not covered by
ARIN) were moderately technical and are most likely to start using v6
but have no incentive to do so.  Giving them the equivalent privileges
in v6 without all the agreements and paperwork would eliminate any
reason for not giving v6 a try.  It may upset some but maybe the early
adopters should get a break just for being early adopters.  Certainly if
they want to expand beyond what they have grandfathered, they should
come under the new rules.  You're going to trade off giving some people
something for free against the probability that they will be more likely
to start using v6 to get things rolling.  If I got IPv6 addresses, it
would give me leverage to get my upstream ISP to route IPv6.  Once they
start, it will get easier and easier to get v6 going.

Getting IPv6 going is something like running a yard sale.  You're not in
it to make money, you're in it to get rid of stuff (in this case unused
IPv6 addresses)  If you run a yard sale with things priced too high, you
just end up dragging a lot of stuff back to the basement.  If you price
them really low, you won't have to carry them back to the basement and
you'll end up with a lot more money than you'd have from not selling all
the stuff you priced too high.

Is it fair to everyone? Maybe not.  Will it work? Who knows?  What
would you lose?  A few of the ridiculously large number of IPv6
addresses that aren't being used anyhow.  But the odds favor getting at
least some additional IPv6 addresses working.

IPv6 is at the same point income taxes were at the start of WWII.  The
government wanted to start withholding taxes in advance but couldn't
figure out how to do that without whacking people twice with taxes
during the starting year.  Someone proposed the idea of forgiving the
taxes for the year prior and just start collecting the withholding on
Jan 1 and go forward.  People were convinced that the government would
go broke but in fact that didn't happen since they started collecting
the current year taxes immediately rather than get a lump sum 16 months
later and we've happily(?) paid monthly withholding ever since and
haven't complained about taxes nearly as much since we never see the
money in our pocket in the first place.  We need something like that
giveaway to get IPv6 started.

Having painted a somewhat rosy picture of what could happen, I am also
reminded of the great GOSIP fiasco of the early 90's where the US
government was directed to start actively using OSI  which was supposed
to offer all(most of?) the options that v6 is supposed to offer.  That
of course died a horrible death.  Since v4 is running out, there is more
incentive to make v6 work but people will need much more incentive than
I've seen offered so far or they will just get more and more clever
about stretching out v4.

I'm sure I have oversimplified some of this, but I thought I'd offer the
viewpoint of a newcomer/outsider to the group as to what I think needs
to be done to get v6 going.



Cliff Bedore
7403 Radcliffe Dr. College Park MD 20740
cliffb at cjbsys.bdb.com http://www.bdb.com
Amateur Radio Call Sign W3CB For info on ham radio, http://www.arrl.org/