the rirs, as the meeting place of those responsible for prudent operation of the network, have traditionally been where the compromise between the three *competing* and *conflicting* vectors of o address space conservation, o routing table growth, and o ease of allocation for isps have responsibly reached compromise. this has not been an easy balance because the three really are in conflict with each-other. but, as prudent operators, and as shepherds of a public good, we have struggled along to manage in a really pretty responsible fashion. witness that one can get and use the ip space one needs, the routing table has not gotten completely unmanageable (especially if you filter prudently <g>), and there is a fair amount of v4 space left. as we move into the v6 world, prudent folk find it hard not to assume that the same or similar forces will be at work. v6 gives us zero leverage on the routing table expansion problem. there is no reason to believe that the seemingly enormous 128 bit address space of v6 will turn out to be any more infinite than the seemingly enormous 32 bit address space did some decades ago. and, as operators, we still have the annoying problems and responsibilities of acquiring, tracking, allocating, ... the address space which is vital to our businesses. in moving forward, it would seem irresponsible to let one consideration obviate all others. e.g. some once thought tlas would solve the routing table growth issue by limiting the global universe to 8k isps. this month, others think ease of allocation is most important, and the problems of address consumption and routing table growth are old-fashioned fears. sadly, as we have discovered in exploring the issues of multi-homing and routing table growth, and as we learned that frequent and rapid renumbering may not be the realities, we seem to need to be a bit cautious about the new world, and not leap to bold conclusions and make radical changes based on yet to be proven assumptions. as isps, in our rush to make life easy for ourselves at the possible expense of other considerations, let us not again demonstrate george santayana's wisdom by repeating history, again creating a swamp, losing track of detailed allocation data, ... as far as i can tell, v6 deployment is not being inhibited by issues surrounding address space allocation. randy