Re: [sig-policy] draft-submission - draft-wilson-class-e-00.txt
Hi,
On Aug 7, 2007, at 2:48 PM, Stephen Gill wrote:
In order to take advantage of 240/4, new code will have to be
deployed and there are systems that cannot/will not be upgraded.
Do you have some sense as to what those systems are, code versions,
and how
many? I know it is on the list of Juniper martians for instance.
As far as I'm aware, pretty much every version of every operating
system out there (including Windows, MacOSX, Linux, etc) doesn't
allow configuring 240/4. Whether or not those OSes are upgradeable
depends on many factors, of course. E.g., I don't think Microsoft
will be supplying a patch for Windows NT/98/etc.
And then there are the embedded systems.
The point is, this is a change of rules way late in the game in terms
of software deployment and backwards compatibility is of high
importance to folks trying to sell services on the address space
allocated.
Granted, it would take some time, testing, and planning but is it not
conceivable that reachability could be attained to similar levels
as that of
a normal newly allocated, de-bogonized /8?
I'd be very surprised that the amount of time necessary to
sufficiently untaint a 240/4 block would be less than the amount of
time necessary to have significant IPv6 deployment.
It seems worth considering if possible systems issues can be
overcome with
enough time given for planning if it extends the life of IPv4 by a
reasonable amount. It would also be useful to put those
considerations into
the draft whatever the final concensus ends up being.
This was discussed, but the decision was to opt for brevity in the
document.
Rgds,
-drc