- DoD can't afford to have its own custom solutions that aren't
commercially available and won't interoperate with commercial or other
Government systems.
Exactly the COTS mantra is all. I think the decision to move to require IPv6
capability is entirely consistent with this approach.
(The questions and answers about "IPv5" are sort of funny.)
Quite whatever happened to that?
The think I find mindboggling about all this is that I have yet to see a
concise explanation of how the great transition to IPv6 is going to be
managed and what the incentive for early adopters is going to be.
I don't buy the 'more addresses' argument. If China wants more IPv4
addresses there are plenty they can take without causing widespread
inconvenience. They could decide to simply advertise BGP routes to net 18 or
one of the other large class As grabbed early on by a US university.
I really would not lay bets on the rights of pioneers who got in early and
locked up all the water rights being respected in the case of severe
drought.
If I am right in my belief that IP beat OSI through inertia and luck rather
than technical superiority there is a big problem deploying IPv6. It may
well be that inertia wins again and IPv4 plus NAT is good enough for most
uses.
Phill