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The IPv6 Transition

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215 points todsacerdoti | 1 comments | 20 Oct 24 05:54 UTC | HN request time: 0.217s | source
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kyledrake ◴[21 Oct 24 15:37 UTC] No.41905309[source]▶
> The design of IPv6 was intentionally very conservative. To a first level of approximation IPv6 is simply “IPv4 with bigger addresses”.

I don't agree with this take. I think it's actually quite a bit more complex, and this is a large part of the reason adoption has been slow. In retrospect, I think it would have been better off in practice to just literally extend the size of IPv4 addresses, and make it as simple as converting all IPv4 systems to hold a larger address.

replies(1): >>41909840 #
1. James_K ◴[22 Oct 24 00:03 UTC] No.41909840[source]▶
I feel like the hard part there is actually accessing all the IPv4 systems to change how they handle addresses. I don't know the full scope of difference, but I feel like once you can do a software update to all of your devices, the cost of increased complexity in protocol would be relatively constant between a minimal and actual v6. You are just pushing different data through the update.