Closure?

[Shane Kerr]

On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, J. Scott Marcus wrote:

> Again, the recommendation is probably workable.  I am worried about
> the underlying overconfidence.

This is my position as well.  

Actually, I am worried by both the overconfidence and the apparent
classfulness and inflexibility of IPv6.  We've started with 128 bits,
threw away half, split the rest up on 16-bit boundaries and now we're
left with 13 bits to play with all of a sudden.  The analysis that
"well, it's only 1/8 of the available space" is fundamentally flawed,
because problems with allocation of that first block may impact the use
of the rest of the space.  IPv6 folks at the IETF think that people who
disagree with their recommendation simply don't understand it - not
true!  I, at least, simply disagree.  The "broad concensus and
acceptance" within other RIR communities is probably a combination of
eagerness to roll out new networks and excessive trust in the IETF
recommendation, rather than a well-thought out assessment of possible
problems.

But let's be realistic.  It doesn't really matter WHAT the RIR space
usage recommendations are.  If I get a /35 from APNIC, ARIN, or the RIPE
NCC, then if I'm at all smart about my allocations, then I won't ever
need more space.  There's no reason for me to allocate /48, /64, or any
other specific allocation.  Unless the RIR's decide to monitor
allocations and REVOKE IPv6 space, any recommendation will carry even
less weight than TTL suggestions for DNS servers (I was going to say
something about recommendations to put name servers on seperate
networks, but that would be an unfair jab at a certain well-known
company, I suppose...).

Shane