Re: Support for 240/4 and 0/8 addresses in NetBSD

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

> Personally, I think that this whole excercise is a waste of time
> (because "on the wild Internet", 240.* has no chance to realiably
> work *to all destinations*, due to too many old routers being
> somewhere in the path)

Today?  Yes.

Tomorrow?  Next year, even?  Yes.

A decade from now?  Not so much.

After, say, 15-30 years?  It wouldn't surprise me if, by then, it
became practical to just say "fix your antique infrastructure" to
people with such issues, much the way someone with infrastructure that
can't handle CIDR would likely get treated now - or even a decade ago.

But, if we (where by "we" I mean the net, not just this list or even
NetBSD) don't do anything, that 10-, 15-, 20-, 30-year timer won't even
start.

I favour dereserving that space for the same reason I favour planting
new trees: it leads to a better world down the line, even if most of
the reward is deferred for a time best measured in decades.

*I* expect to still be using networked computers in 20 years.  While
I'm less sure of it, I also expect IPv4 to still be a significant
player in 20 years.  Thus, I favour this from even a purely selfish
point of view.  (I also favour it from a "leave the world better for
the future" perspective.)

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