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Re: Last Call: <draft-ietf-6man-rfc4291bis-07.txt> (IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture) to Internet Standard

2017-02-20 18:20:36
On Thu, Feb 16, 2017 at 09:40:01AM +0100, otroan(_at_)employees(_dot_)org wrote:
There are many reasons for the 64 bit boundary.
- Allowing identifier locator split: 8+8 / GSE that led to ILNP and NPT66

Irrelevant.

- Simplicity in addressing (no more subnet masks)

That seems an overly optimistic statement.

- A fair balance between the users and the providers of networks.
  Ensure that users get a fair share of addresses and try to avoid
  operators charging per address.

IETF is not a product management committee. Regardless of what is fair
or just or reasonable, vendors will charge for the strangest things.
While I sympathize with the objective, I do not think this is the
appropiate forum to achieve such a goal.

Also, I think we here touching upon the very heart of the issue: some
would like to force every link on this planet to have a routable /64
(for perhaps ideological reasons), and some don't (for perhaps
operational reasons).

I'm from the school of thought where unenforceable rules have no place
in society. There already is precedent to abandon a classful addressing
paradigm in favor of classless inter-domain routing. This implies that a
the fixed 64 bit boundary is unattainable, as such, getting classless
IPv6 is merely a matter of expending sufficient energy.

The 64 bit boundary is so embedded in the set of IPv6 specifications
that it would be very hard to unravel at this point. It certainly
cannot be a single paragraph put in during the advancement of 4291.
Write a draft. Or write a book on protocol politics and the
underlaying values reflected in the specifications...

If this is the case, why proceed 4291bis while its content is contested?
What purpose does that serve?  By publishing 4291bis, one would add yet
another referenceable source to legitimize the 64 bit boundary, which
adds to the pile of things that need to be 'unraveled'. Perhaps the buck
should stop here?

PS: With an implementor hat on, I write code that can deal with any prefix 
length.

Excellent! Keep it up.

Kind regards,

Job

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