While the Internet is intended to allow the free exchange of information, the means of getting that information from place to place is and has to be defined by protocols that are implemented in a consistent manner (see: BGP, among many other examples).  It's important to separate the ideas from the plumbing.

That said, no one is stopping anyone from working on IPv4, so what personal freedoms are being impacted by working toward deploying IPv6, with an eye toward sunsetting IPv4 in the future?

Keep in mind that IPv4 started out as an experiment that found its way into wider use.  It's a classic case of a test deployment that suddenly mutated into a production service.  Why should we continue to expend effort to perpetuate the sins of the past, rather work toward getting v6 into wider use?

Is IPv6 a perfect protocol?  Absolutely not, but it addresses the key pain point of IPv4 - address space exhaustion.

Thank you

jms

On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 9:35 AM Abraham Y. Chen <aychen@avinta.com> wrote:

3)    Re: Ur. Pts. 5) & 6):    I believe that there is a philosophic / logic baseline that we need to sort out, first. That is, we must keep in mind that the Internet community strongly promotes "personal freedom". Assuming that by stopping others from working on IPv4 will shift their energy to IPv6 is totally contradicting such a principle. A project attracts contributors by its own merits, not by relying on artificial barriers to the competitions. Based on my best understanding, IPv6 failed right after the decision of "not emphasizing the backward compatibility with IPv4". It broke one of the golden rules in the system engineering discipline. After nearly three decades, still evading such fact, but defusing IPv6 issues by various tactics is the real impedance to progress, not only to IPv4 but also to IPv6.