[Removed unusual cc-list.] James Gates writes: > I'm not too sure what we can discuss here. As the community haven't > really warmed to IPv6, I would have thought that lack of IPv6 support is > the norm, not the exception. What would be the outcome of an ARC > discussion - Would you insist that the community implement IPv6 support? > Would integration be stalled until IPv6 support is enabled?
Regardless of what "the community" may think of IPv6 (and perhaps what I think of it as well), it's actually required in some markets, including with US government customers, so integrating components that don't support it poses potentially serious problems with at least Sun's marketing and sales. For that reason, the Solaris PAC had a "big rule" requiring IPv6 conformance for all Solaris components that include IP-related networking. The relevance of that (and perhaps all "big rules") is somewhat unclear to me at this point, but the only 'reasonable' exception was if the protocol being implemented was itself not defined to work with IPv6. (E.g., ARP doesn't work with IPv6, so an ARP-related project wouldn't be forced into inventing something that doesn't exist.) Yes, I'm well aware that there are some groups and products that never did IPv6 and possibly never will. Driving compliance across something as big as Sun is not easy. I would at least offer _strong_ ARC advice that the project team consider implementing that support and donating the results to the community -- unless the application is just plain horrible, this shouldn't really be hard to do -- and suggest that they get in touch with Victor Nelson to find out more about the issues and risks that may be caused by spotty IPv6 support. (Including, in some cases, the risk of losing our IPv6 Logo. Likely not a risk with this one project, but certainly a cumulative risk over time if we don't try to guard the commons.) -- James Carlson, Solaris Networking <james.d.carlson at sun.com> Sun Microsystems / 35 Network Drive 71.232W Vox +1 781 442 2084 MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.496N Fax +1 781 442 1677
