@Suiseiseki

> IPv6 just requires software changes really and the software changes have already been made or are possible - the main blocker is proprietary software as always.

Then one wonders why it has been completely unsuccessful at dislodging IPv4 for...three decades.

Of course, "Just a software change!" presumes changeable software, it presumes that changing is zero-cost, and it ignores infrastructure and coordination.

> Previously, gateway protocols were implemented, but it was soon determined that it native IPv6 was a much better choice.

I don't know what you think I meant.

> The designers of IPv6 realized that address exhaustion was impossible to solve without a complete overhaul,

No, they always wanted a complete overhaul before the address exhaustion was a factor. The Second System was always going to fix *all* of the problems of the first one. It's the real silver bullet this time, guys. In fact, you can see in RFC 1627 that they argue *against* private subnets partially because delaying address exhaustion will delay the adoption of the new network protocol that will Fix Everything. Address exhaustion is the boogeyman used to scare people into adopting all of the other shit, and it has been since at least 1994.

> so it's time for IPv6.

Feel free to use IPv6 all you like. I don't need to, so I won't.

> an improved version of a protocol that works as it was originally intended to.

That remains to be seen. If it's adopted at the scale of IPv4, we'll know if it works better.

> I plug the computer in and it autoconfigures and just works via SLAAC, meanwhile, IPv4 takes ages to come up thanks to DHCP brokenness.

SKill issue. DHCP seems to work fine on this network. Worst-case is wifi, takes a couple of seconds. Meanwhile, unless I pass "-4" to curl/wget, I get to sit and watch them time out. It turns out to be much easier to just skip IPv6 in the kernel so that IPv6 isn't even attempted and I don't have to pass stupid options. (Maybe I could extend this to every host in the network by patching my local resolver to always return NODATA for AAAA reqs.)

> Most complaints about IPv6 seem to be skill issues where people can't figure out how to use the computer in front of them to copy and paste the address or DNS.

"It's a shitty notation" is not answered by "Well, just copy and paste." If you want to see actual complaints, scroll up. Instead of insisting that all I care about is the notation (which is shitty), let's do this. I have not heard any IPv6 advocates even attempt to address any of my actual objections or concerns, they just sidestep them and then complain that I MUST HATE PROGRESS. Please feel free to address these:

* It *is* a shitty notation.
* 64 bits would have been fine.
* IPv4 will never go away. We are still emulating the Teletype Model 33-ASR and people are still linking against to speak VT-100 escape codes: that's way easier to drop than a network protocol.
* IPv6 gives me nothing I want. No carrot, and the stick has still not materialized.
* I will care about IPv6 when I have to. I do not have to, and will not have to for years to come.
* It is not desirable that every system be globally routeable, which is one of the explicit goals of IPv6.

Incidentally, if you do scroll up, you will see my remark that, now that IPv6 has been mentioned, it will end up consuming the thread in exactly the same way that a negative remark about systemd or Rust does it.