> of course, if after a couple of years it isn't working, there is nothing
> stopping the IETF rescinding, and supporting IPv4 once more due to
> "customer pressures". :-)Hello? That's where we are *now*.
May I remind you that IPv6 has been available December 1995, when the first set of IPv6 specification RFC's came out, and now, almost 10 years later, deployment is still minimal. The customers have "voted with their feet" for IPv4.
(Yes, I know, "the support situation has improved and we expect wide-scale deployment in the next year" - I think I've heard that same mantra every year for the last N years. I really ought to go back through my email folders and create a web page of IPv6 predictions. In fact, I think that's a good idea - it will help make plain how hollow such claims are. My task for today! :-)
Anyway, the point is that successful networking technologies don't take 10 years to succeed. They either catch on, or they don't, and after 10 years this one has not caught on.
The upgrade path (replace the entire internet layer in one fell swoop) IPv6 adopted clearly isn't working. Time to try something rather different.
Noel