Re: Open letter

[Christian Huitema <]

>IPv7 is CLNP on the 'internetworking' layer, no magic, and it still
>have some of the old source/dest limitation's, even thus it might do
>some good. (Personally I think we need another kind of toy here)

IPv7 is not CLNP. IPv7 is the generic name for the "next version of IP".
Current version number in use is IPv4; number 5 and 6 were assigned
long ago to experimental variants of the IP protocol; number 7 is thus
the next version number, full point.

What will be the actual specification for this next version number is
still a matter of heated debate. Two prominent proposals are TUBA and
IPAE; another candidate is PIP. TUBA is a derivative of CLNP; IPAE and
PIP are not. The IAB, in a draft statement issued in June after 
meeting in Kope, favored TUBA. This raised a storm of hate mail, and
the draft statement was retired; it was not published as RFC.

I do not think that we will end up with anything like a CLNP based
solution for the next generation. CLNP addressing plan is bogus, and the
CLNP encodings are, to say the list, suboptimal. You are right to
mention that we need "another kind of toy"; promising ideas are
appearing in the ongoing debate.

And you are also absolutely right when you say that CIDR is the only 
game in town now.

Christian Huitema