IPv4 will, undoubtedly, eventually run out.
ipv4 will be around after everyone on this list today is retired. this is not a happy thing. but the arrogant and ops-clue-free fools who designed ipv6 have doomed us to this state. any fool who tells you ipv4 is irrelevant should please make their systems ipv6 only so we no longer have to read their fantasies. what is happening is that the iana and the rirs are are being disintermediated. they are less and less directly involved in the users' (isps and end sites) acquisition of ipv4 space. these monopoly hoarders of integers are losing their hoards. we would like it if the registries acted as registries, i.e. recorded accurately who controls/owns what address space. we thought that was their primary responsibility. the registry system has a choice. it can make it difficult for users to register, transfer, sauté, whatever address space, in which case they have some chance at a reasonable level of accuracy in their registries, or they can make it difficult. in the latter case, they will become vestigial organs whose function we will soon not even be able to remember. and we sure as heck won't be sending money to them. the choice is ours. today, dealing with the registries' petty rules and bureaucracy is a major pita. this policy proposal tries to make it easier. it really makes small difference what we choose. the internet will route around whatever impediments we place. it's a big river now. randy