On Wed, 2009-05-20 at 09:14 -0400, Joe Abley wrote:
To me, there's an implication here that we're talking about a transition from IPv4 to IPv6, which (again, to me) implies that there's a vision of IPv6 being the overwhelmingly dominant protocol on the Internet with IPv4 marginalised (e.g.) like DECNET and IPX in 2009.
Does anybody here expect this to happen in their lifetimes?
I do. At some point IPv6 connectivity will be ubiquitous enough so that someone can put content on the web in IPv6 and not care about the IPv4 folks who can't get to it. Sure, at first it will be university students putting up pictures of their cats for their friends (damn that 10k photo limit on Facebook!). But eventually it will move on to people hosting message boards talking about Star Trek XLIX: the Never-Ending Franchise, and at some point only people determined to make their web page render in lynx will care about IPv4.
Just curious, really. There's a slight operational base for the question, which is that a transition implies IPv6-only nodes, whereas an entrenched IPv4 Internet means we'll be dual-stack for ever.
Here's a question: Do you know if you can use a rotary phone on your land-line at home(*)? I have no idea - in fact my phone line is only used for my DSL connection. Technology transitions do happen, even with millions of end user systems to upgrade. Like the phone systems of yesteryear, someone, somewhere will probably support IPv4 forever, but I doubt most of us will care about that sad person and their aging Amiga Unix systems. :) -- Shane (*) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIDw75mUl6c