[e2e] the evolution of deployability

[J. Noel Chiappa]

    > From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed at reed.com>

    > My gripe with IPv6 is that it never was put in a competitive context
    > as a standard that had to compete for adoption. IPv4 had to compete,
    > and it did so beautifully.

In the IETF meeting in Toronto in which the IETF formally settled on IPv6, I
recall someone (in the IPng directorate meeting) making exactly that point -
that IPv6's strongest competitor would be IPv4, and they furthermore
predicted that IPv4 would win. And so it has come to pass, exactly as
predicted back at the start.

    > My opinion may not matter to most, but it's probably time to declare
    > IPv6 dead.

Actually, I think the optimal use of time/energy would indicate a wait of
another year or two before starting the effort to turn off the ventilator.  My
current sense is that trying before then would just result in a lot of
head-butting, with little positive result. Too many people think Asia is going
to rescue it; it needs another year or so for that to pan through.


    > In the commercial world we call it "Missing the Window".

Someone else got there first with this point (in March '00, to be exact):

    >> From: Andy Valencia <vandys at zendo.com>

    >> IPv6 is like the DoD completing the design of a gigaton nuclear bomb in
    >> the year 2000; everybody's thinking that it would've been cool to have
    >> this in 1963, but who the hell wants to spend all the bucks on it 37
    >> years late?

but I think his version of it is a lot more entertaining!


    > My gut feeling is that what's happened to the Internet is that it's
    > become a maze of twisty passages and toll roads. 

Yes, exactly. Which is why some people have bailed on the IETF. Trying to
reform something that complex, and with that many vested economic interests,
by "rough consensus" is just not a workable proposition.

	Noel