sje wrote:Some home routers have been IPv6 compliant for years. I believe that Apple's AirPort router (and Mac OS/X) has had IPv6 support for over a decade. Of course, it's not the cheapest router available. Purchasers that base buying decisions only on price can get burned in the long run. This has always been the case and will continue to be.
Where will all the cheap, non-upgradable home routers go? The same place the analog televisions went.
I am not responsible for others' choices of hardware and software; I don't expect them to be responsible for mine. But I do expect others to not impede the progress of the rest of us.
Very often the routers are supplied by the ISP. Those "others" you're talking about are not impeding your progress. You're free to sign up to one of the few ISPs supporting IPv6 and use it wherever possible.
Don't expect to get much more out of it compared to IPv4 though (for now)...
sje wrote:Almost all porting issues can be solved with only a very few code changes plus recompilation and linking with the right libraries. Problems due to having a mixed IPv4/IPv6 environment have already started to decline and will continue to do so.
How can they have started to decline if IPV6 has not yet started to be widely used?
sje wrote:The necessary code has already been written, tested, and is generally freely available; at least for those using Linux, Mac OS/X, or other Posix compliant platforms.
But here again, we have a "real world" with all these millions of Windows PCs and Windows servers ... They are there, and they will continue to be there. And they have software which must be ported, too. When will that be done?
I also mentioned the millions of home office routers. Do you think they can be thrown away all at once? Network printers? Hubs? You can't, so your software must continue to be aware of "old" and "new" IP world at the same time.
sje wrote:It is not hard to learn. I started programming back in 1969 and I've managed to figure out these new things without too much effort, so those younger and with a more recent education should have even less difficulty.
Some applications will break, but will be fixed if they're supported or are open source. Using unsupported, closed source programs is itself a problem and will remain so; this sad fact should not be allowed to impede progress for the rest of us.
It is not a question of learning. It is a question of how much changes can be done at the same time.
Don't you see the need for a migration strategy, instead of a "big bang"?
Sven
Nobody is advocating a "big bang". But "deprecated" has a pretty clear meaning. IPV6 has been around for 10+ years now in Linux. It is not brand-spanking new, which is what Steven was talking about. It works reliably today, where it was pretty shaky when it first appeared in the Linux kernel as an experimental feature.
However, back to the point. "Migration" is not forever. There must be a drop-dead data. Everyone puts the conversion off until it is forced on them. Analog TV is an example. The US Congress even extended the "shut off the analogue broadcast transmitters" because everyone fiddled around for 5+ years and then suddenly couldn't get everything ready at the last minute. No deadline, no conversion.
It works reliably at the operating system level, sure. (or at least we think it does)
At the ISP level, home router level, common applications level and probably others, it's not anywhere near working yet. Sure, you can find some ISPs, routers and applications which do support it, but most don't.
I think most of the effort will have to come from ISPs. Most end users do not know or care. Many wouldn't notice if they're put behind a NAT due to IPv4 exhaustion either... Unfortunately.
Here's a question for you. When we decided to go to 100% digital TV, where was the biggest bottleneck? Not the users that had bought digital TVs and were HD ready. From the broadcasters. Why?
If there is no push, nothing will happen, and we will be stuck where people using IPV4 can't get additional IP addresses, they can't expand to IPV6 because it is not universally available. They are stuck. IPV6 is the solution. But it has to be applied or it won't work.
I believe momentum will force things once customers of various ISPs demand a static IP address so that they can access their home machine remotely, where today that is not possible in most locations...
sje wrote:Some home routers have been IPv6 compliant for years. I believe that Apple's AirPort router (and Mac OS/X) has had IPv6 support for over a decade. Of course, it's not the cheapest router available. Purchasers that base buying decisions only on price can get burned in the long run. This has always been the case and will continue to be.
Where will all the cheap, non-upgradable home routers go? The same place the analog televisions went.
I am not responsible for others' choices of hardware and software; I don't expect them to be responsible for mine. But I do expect others to not impede the progress of the rest of us.
I agree. My DSL modem / router combo gets a firmware upgrade every few months. It is easy enough for it to be fixed, although it seems to understand enough IPV6 now to work, although it can't be tested very well since not many are using IPV6 yet...
sje wrote:Some home routers have been IPv6 compliant for years. I believe that Apple's AirPort router (and Mac OS/X) has had IPv6 support for over a decade. Of course, it's not the cheapest router available. Purchasers that base buying decisions only on price can get burned in the long run. This has always been the case and will continue to be.
Where will all the cheap, non-upgradable home routers go? The same place the analog televisions went.
I am not responsible for others' choices of hardware and software; I don't expect them to be responsible for mine. But I do expect others to not impede the progress of the rest of us.
Very often the routers are supplied by the ISP. Those "others" you're talking about are not impeding your progress. You're free to sign up to one of the few ISPs supporting IPv6 and use it wherever possible.
Don't expect to get much more out of it compared to IPv4 though (for now)...
Except for a whole lot more security and a whole lot less spoofing...
And my 2008 HP laser printer, too. I'm not sure about my 2006 Sony PS3 as I haven't used it in a long time.
Within a few more years, all televisions and all mobile devices will lose their dedicated frequency allocations and will be made into IPv6-only devices. Pre-IPv6 hardware will either be upgraded or tossed in a landfill.
And my 2008 HP laser printer, too. I'm not sure about my 2006 Sony PS3 as I haven't used it in a long time.
Within a few more years, all televisions and all mobile devices will lose their dedicated frequency allocations and will be made into IPv6-only devices. Pre-IPv6 hardware will either be upgraded or tossed in a landfill.
Well,don't update the ps3 and use the otherOs feature while you still have the chance.
