[MLB-WIRELESS] IPv?

[Andrew Harcourt]

Andrew>> On this point, I'm inclined to agree with you. At
Andrew>> least for the first few months/years we should
Andrew>> allow IPv4 traffic across the network.

Hamish> What does "allow" mean? We are a bunch of unconnected
Hamish> people trying to build an ad-hoc network. I don't see
Hamish> that we can really dictate anything.

Whoah, fellas - this is starting to sound a bit like a night out with a
bunch of law students...

I used "allow" in a purely technical sense of the word - i.e. you should set
your router to allow forwarding of IPv4 packets - and not to imply any kind
of either ownership or censorship of the network.

<rant type="mild">

The whole reason we're trying to build this kind of network is to have a
free, open, community-based piece of infrastructure that *hopefully* adds
some small value to our lives and those of others. Having people get narky
about how we're going to prevent so-and-so from charging for traffic
transiting his node, or someone else wanting us all to route IPX, or people
wanting us to all sign waivers and disclaimers before we connect to the
network is getting a bit silly.

If we're a community-based enterprise, at some point (if we get there) we'll
likely be obliged to incorporate. This is the only way we're going to get
any kind of external funding, for example from city councils, charities and
whatnot. That's one obvious conclusion. The result of that is that we'll
have to have a constitution and elected office bearers, and members of the
incorporated body will be required to abide by the constitution - in which
we can tell people that they're not to pirate software, attack other nodes,
charge traffic, wear green underpants or eat chicken at the next
Melbwireless BBQ :)

Until we get to that stage, however, I think we're starting to dig trenches
simply so we can build bridges over them.

</rant>

Sorry, Hamish - that mild grump session wasn't directed so much at you, but
at the few threads that have been generating most of the list traffic over
the past couple of weeks.

Andrew>> FWIW I'd tend to disagree with you here. The
Andrew>> Internet isn't ready for IPv6 on a wide scale
Andrew>> yet - but IPv6 as a protocol, and the software
Andrew>>infrastructure to support it - is alive and well.

Hamish> I'm not sure the software support is everywhere yet.

Not everywhere, but almost everywhere that needs it. Most operating systems
support IPv6 (including Win2k and WinXP), the routing, host configuration
(i.e. DHCP) and DNS issues have been sorted out long ago, and most decent
software packages have implemented support for it or have very nearly done
so. FWIW it's just as easy to tunnel IPv4 over IPv6 as vice versa.

Regardless of the technical state of IPv6, we're getting off the topic here.
I'm suggesting that we allow (yes, in the technical sense!!) IPv4 *and* IPv6
traffic across the network. How it happens - whether we do it as per the
Internet and tunnel v6 over v4 for a while, or whether we set up our
addressing and routing to handle it directly - does not matter. If people
don't want to route a protocol, fine. Not a problem. We'll route around
them. If people only want to route IPv6, good for them. IPv4 nodes will
either use a tunneling gateway to transit their nodes or will not pester
them with traffic. Eventually equilibrium will be reached.

Treat it as the Internet was handled - when there arose a problem, a
solution was found. We can't possibly foresee all the issues we're going to
encounter and we really shouldn't be worrying about it at this stage.

/me gives up on ingesting coffee and inserts IV caffeine line

Regards,
Andrew





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