Re: Fwd: [ppml] Policy Proposal: IPv6 Assignment Size Reduction

[Steve Bertrand <ipv6@ibctech.ca>]

>> "The following guidelines may be useful (but they are only guidelines)"
>>
> These specific guidelines, as either guidelines or rules, in the
> context of IPv6's dramatically larger address space, compared to
> IPv4's, are rediculous.
> 
> My concern about suggested guidelines like these are that people who
> are stuck in an IPv4 "address space is precious" mindset will grab onto
> them and then make IPv6 significantly harder and more costly to manage and
> deploy than it was designed to be. Letting that happen would be doing a great
> disservice to the future users of the IPv6 Internet.

I agree. It's taken me quite some time and several people reminding me
to free myself of the IPv4 way of doing things due to the lack of number
space. Since I've been able to do that, it doesn't make sense to go back
to that way of thinking.

Now, I have no doubt whatsoever that there are architects and engineers
out there where these particular suggested guidelines will make sense.
However, one would think that in most situations, having 10 or so
different addressing block sizes will make it a nightmare to implement,
document, maintain and in particular, move a clients PA space about the
network.

I'm not particularly arguing against the idea as it will make sense to
some, I just don't agree with it being implemented into policy. I'd much
rather see something like this in a draft BCP RFC or similar. I feel
that people associate policy with rules, and even though it's clearly
documented in the policy proposal that it's just a set of guidelines, it
will make murky the current actual policy of the 16-bit boundary rules.

Steve