[ipv6-wg] A Modest IPv6-wg Proposal

> Perhaps it is time to move beyond the traditional 
> administrative and technical co-ordination of RIPE and begin 
> shameless advocacy. Widespread
> IPv6 adoption is in the best interests of everyone.

Have you heard of <ipv6-wg at ripe.net>, not to mention the RIPE postion
statement on IPv6? Advocacy can be bad as well as good. I think that 
the blind advocacy of the past has actually hurt IPv6 adoption and
we need to be careful not to carry that forward. There are sound
business and technical reasons to deploy IPv6 over the next couple
of years, and to upgrade software and systems to support that 
deployment. 

> I am sure we can think of a lot of ways that RIPE can use its 
> unique position to improve IPv6 adoption. 

I'm sure that we can think of lots of ways in which RIPE's unique
position makes it relatively powerless when it comes to impacting
IPv6 adoption.

> The discussion 
> about vendors saying "no demand" is a good point. Things like 
> petitions signed by a huge number of ISPs in Europe may have 
> an effect.

This is the kind of ridiculousness that comes from blind advocacy.
Vendors do not listen to petitions, they listen to customers. When
we needed one of our vendors to support IPv6 in order to use their
equipment in an internal IPv6 trial, we went and talked to them.
In a month or so they had added IPv6 support and supplied units for
us to test.

The bottleneck is not the vendors, it is the technical people who
know about the need to deploy IPv6 but fail to engage with their
coworkers in the same company to coordinate IPv6 readiness activities.

> It may also be possible to encourage governments 
> in the RIPE region to insist on IPv6 for new purchases. I 
> doubt there would be a shortage of ideas if people were asked 
> for them.

Have you heard of the EU's IPv6 Task Force? <http://www.ipv6.eu/>
If they can't get government to insist on IPv6 for new purchases
then RIPE certainly can't either.

> Surely we can find something 
> better to do with our time than see another chart showing
> IPv6 traffic rise 20% (*)?

I agree about that. It is better to share case studies, and to talk
about events rather than look at meaningless traffic charts. In fact,
the WG could coordinate certain actions, for instance, as many WG
members
as possible will collect IPv6 roadmaps from DSL gateway vendors, and 
the WG will collate the data and report on how many DSL vendors support
IPv6, how many have a date for support, how many are vague and how many
do not have it on their roadmap. That is an example of one action. The
following RIPE meeting would see a new action planned, perhaps engaging
with your city's IT staff to see when they expect to be buying IPv6
access,
then collate some stats.

Note that each one of those events spreads awareness of IPv6 and
provides
an opportunity for a press release, further spreading awareness. In
marketing,
there is a rule of thumb that you must repeat your message 7 times
before it
takes hold. Advocacy is a form of marketing.

> I guess I'm a little confused. I thought I already did 
> propose this to the working group? :) In any case I'll be at 
> the next RIPE meeting, and will be happy to discuss this there.

It's a shame that RIPE no longer follows the IETF traditions from which
it grew,
and treat the mailing list as the primary venue for discussion.

--Michael Dillon