[ipv6-wg] Disband IPv6 WG

I think he's on to something.

Perhaps the IETF can start working on IPv4bis. Something with, say, 128 bit addresses, fixed-size subnets and heavier use of multicast instead of broadcast.

We'll leave NAT4bis4bis as an implementation detail for router vendors.

Alex

> On Oct 3, 2019, at 12:34 , Jens Link <lists at quux.de> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> after now almost 12 years using, working and teaching[1]
> IPv6 I've come to the conclusion that IPv6 is a mistake and will
> not work.
> 
> Therefore the RIPE IPv6 WG should be disbanded and replaced
> with a new WG that MUST investigate all possible solutions to
> artificially prolong the live of IPv4 till the day a new successor
> for IPv4 is created and implemented!
> 
> Some great ideas[2] are already proposed, some of them already
> implemented:
> 
> - Use of NAT
> - Use of the first Class-A network 0.0.0.0[3]
> - Use of parts of localhost Class-A network 127.0.0.0
> - Use of (parts) of Class-D address space (multicast)
> - Use of Class-E address space (future use)
> - Using part of the UDP / TCP port range as extension for the
>  address.
> 
> Some of the reserved address spaces could also be used. E.g. nobody
> is using 192.0.2.0/24 for documentation anyway.
> 
> It should also be investigated to take back legacy IPv4 resources,
> although the "owners" of these resources might already selling
> them on the open market.
> 
> It MUST also be considered not filtering on Class-C[4] bounderies
> but going for something smaller like /26 or /27 in the global routing
> table. Also new Class Designations for these prefixes MUST be created.
> 
> The new successor to IPv4 should not make the same mistakes as IPv6.
> 
> - IT MUST have NAT
> - It MUST have Classes
> - IT MUST have DHCP
> - It MUST have ARP
> - It should be possible to drop ICMP the same impact as in IPv4. Many
>  experts I talked to over the years told me that blocking ICMP has
>  no negative impacts.
> - It MUST only have numbers and dots "."
> - There should be absolutly no reasons to use "[ ]" in URLs
> 
> Probably the best way to proceed is to just add one or two octets to the
> address.
> 
> One of the reasons for the above is that there are so is so many good
> documentation already written about IPv4! And people already know about
> IPv4! Why waste this knowledge and experience? There is also plenty of
> good software out there that can't work with IPv6[5] Change is bad!
> People don't want to learn!
> 
> IPv4! MUST! NOT! DIE!
> 
> Jens
> 
> [1] at least trying to teach, as one can see from the great number of
>    people actually using IPv6 with little success
> 
> [2] https://netdevconf.info/0x13/session.html?talk-ipv4-unicast-expansions
> 
> [3] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=96125bf9985a
> 
> [4] a Class-C network is the equivalent of an /24. I was told by experts
>    that the definition of some bit set in the first octet of an IPv4
>    address is complete and utter nonsense
> 
> [5] like a 20 year old shell script that is so important for $university
>    that it would be hard for them to implement IPv6!
> 
>