> 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,
That's ridiculous. Any IPv6 implementation from before around 2000 is really too immature to be usable (just look at those early specs), and there are still problem areas that must be solved before IPv6 can be considered a decent alternative to IPv4.
and now, almost 10 years later, deployment is still minimal. The customers have "voted with their feet" for IPv4.
Not yet.
(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! :-)
But you are doing the exact same thing by claiming premature defeat. If IPv6 were really as dead as you say, how is it possible that so many vendors have been implementing so many new IPv6 features the past year alone?
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.
It would be interesting to compare the first 5 years of ARPANET with the first 5 years of IPv6 availability. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more systems running IPv6 today than systems connected to the ARPANET in 1974.
The upgrade path (replace the entire internet layer in one fell swoop) IPv6
adopted clearly isn't working. Time to try something rather different.
If this is what you really want I think you should make your case based on technical merit of the new approach over IPv6 rather than a perceived marketing failure.