Serious consideration requires a serious proposal - I don’t think we’ve seen one yet.

I would posit that draft-schoen-intarea-unicast-240-03 ( https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-schoen-intarea-unicast-240/ ) should be considered a serious proposal, in so much as what is proposing is the most direct:

- Redesignate 240/4 from RESERVED - Future Use to be available for allocation as 'standard' IPv4 addresses. 

I personally disagree with their position, as does the IETF, so it doesn't appear there will be any more movement on it, but I do believe that the idea itself was serious.

Of course, I also agree with you that there have been plenty of un-serious proposals floated too which don't really require discussion. :) 

On Tue, Nov 22, 2022 at 1:48 PM John Curran <jcurran@istaff.org> wrote:


On Nov 22, 2022, at 1:19 PM, Joe Maimon <jmaimon@jmaimon.com> wrote:

John Curran wrote:

By the way, you shouldn’t feel particularly bad about skipping out on the interoperability requirement – anything involving interworking with the installed Internet is hard, and this is the same lesson that the IPv6 folks found out the hard way…   I will confess that I was a member of the IETF's IPng Directorate and thus inherently complicit in that particular fiasco –

John,

Flags days on the internet of today have proven to be of limited value.

Joe - 

I am not suggesting a flag day for 240/4 (or any other particular approach) - merely noting that anyone who wishes to promote 240/4 has a wide range of options to consider when they decide to get serious and actually consider interoperability approaches. 

The part I feel bad about is that I am actually un-involved in much of anyway with the 240/4 or other ideas, my sole input has been to attempt to encourage serious consideration and to rebut  naysaying.

Serious consideration requires a serious proposal - I don’t think we’ve seen one yet.

Yes, a standards update is only the beginning of a real effort, although plenty has changed even without that.

Yes, there may and likely will be a large extent of interoperability and usability challenges for quite some time, perhaps even enough time that the issue becomes moot.

Yes, it may be insurmountable.

Yes, it may render 240/4 unusable and undesirable to the extent that it has little contributory effect on IPv4.

However it may not and discouraging serious consideration is actually a contributing factor preventing any such potential.

I certainly am not discouraging serious consideration… simply awaiting something sufficient complete to discuss. 

(Saying that “this proposal likely will create interoperability and usability challenges – but let’s all talk about the merits of it while ignoring that detail for now” doesn’t cut it – I’ve seen that approach once before and hasn’t turned out particularly well for anyone involved…) 

Best wishes,
/John

p.s. Disclaimer(s) - my views alone - please remember to have your arms and legs fully inside before the ride starts...