> On Oct 14, 2022, at 8:47 AM, Masataka Ohta <mohta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: ... there are a number of inaccuracies in the text below - see RFC 1752 for a more detailed description of the process Scott > An important point of the thread is why IPv6 address is > so lengthy. And the history around it recognized by the > thread with my understanding is that: > > 1) There was a L3(?) protocol called XNS, which use L2 > address as lower part of L3 address, which is layer > violation, which disappeared and IPv4 won the > battle at L3. > > 2) Though IAB tried to force IETF to accept CLNP > (developed by OSI) as an alternative for IPv4, it was > denied by democratic process in IETF and a project to > develop IPng, which should be different from CLNP, was > initiated in IETF. > > 3) the project resulted to choose SIP, which has 8B > address, as the primary candidate for IPng though > some attempt to merge it with other proposals > (though such mergers usually result in worse results > than originals). > > 4) then, all of a sudden, a closed committed of > IPng directorates decided that address should be > 16B long to revive an abandoned, with reasons, > address structure of XNS, which is not a > democratic process. > > 5) we, including me, was not aware that 16B address > is so painful to operate, partly because I hoped > most initial bit can be all zero. But... > > That is the recently recognized history of IPv6 and most, if > not all. of my points in it can be confirmed by the link for > a mail from Bill Simpson. > > It should also be noted that unnecessarily lengthy address > of IPv6 may be motivated to revive CLNP addressing against > the democratic process. See rfc1888 for such a proposal. > > Masataka Ohta >
