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Comment by Dagger2 | Hacker News Reader

So your suggested ordering is for everybody to add support for your v4x addresses in every OS, device, software, API, protocol etc, and then only allow them to make use of the extra address space after everybody else has also added support everywhere?

To be clear, you don't need to change much in order to have v4x without using the extra address space... but starting to use that extra space means changing everything in the same sense that starting to use the extra address space from v6 means changing everything.

At least with v6 you don't have to wait for the rest of the world to be ready. You can start using it straight away. What you're asking for would give people _less_ motivation to do the work, so the "the world only becomes ready" problem gets worse. How is this better?

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To answer your first question, if both hosts understand v4x, you can still use the extra space before everyone else is using it. v6 has the same limitation except all routers in between also need to understand it, unless you've set up 6to4 which is more configuration. But this isn't even the main issue.

How is v4x easier, because from many parties' perspectives (end users, ISPs, hosts), there is little to no change. Yes, whoever makes the router or OS has to deal with the new protocol. Now if you buy a new router or update your OS, it supports and truly uses v4x without you needing to configure anything. Unlike v6 where even if you don't make a router or OS, you very much have to deal with it as a sysadmin or maybe even an end user.

How is v4x more motivating, well to most people it's not. It's just easier. Those who already own large v4 blocks might be more motivated to support v4x than v6, but it's a double-edged sword.

I'm not saying it's simply better though. There are downsides. It's better if your only goal is to extend the address space.

Why do you think sysadmins and end users wouldn't need to deal with v4x?

I understand it in the situation where you aren't using the expanded address space, because then you can just present v4 addresses to the sysadmin/user and they don't need to do anything differently. But... then you don't get any expanded address space.

If you want to actually use the expanded address space, then they need to deal with it in the same ways and for the same reasons they need to deal with v6. There doesn't appear to be any aspect of v4x that would alter or avoid that need.

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