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
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.