An odd article. He seems to think there ought to be a Grand Plan forcing the transition.
Servers can have both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, there's no need for everyone to just switch over at once.
I strongly suspect that the big providers will start rolling it out over the next couple of years, and that this will filter down to local users after that.
My main problem is that very few home routers support IPv6, so they'll need to be replaced. But this can happen over time, with people on IPv4 being behind NAT, and thus having less accessibility to soem applications, they can make their own choices about when to upgrade.
Assume that: (1) universal adoption of X is good, (2) individual adoption of X takes a few time and effort, and (3) individual adoption of X provide no benefit whatsoever (such benefit will come when everyone has switched).
I think X will never be adopted before either (1), (2), or (3) becomes false. That or you actually scheme a "Grand Plan forcing the [adoption]".
I the case of IPv6, the author proposed to solve (2) by embeding the switch in the normal upgrade process, and (3) by making IPv6 backward compatible with IPv4. That is not forcing anyone. It just removes a huge amount of friction, solving the chicken-and-egg problem.
I'm not convinced that (3) is going to be true in the long run. It's when using IPV4 is a problem that people will switch. And that will come when ISPs start using NAT on their users.
Agreed,and many customers will switch without knowing it.
If Comcast swapped my cable modem for a V6 capable modem, and if as a part of routine upgrades, my Dlink-whatever got swapped with one that has native v6, I'd be on v6 without knowing it. My Vista, Win7, Mac and Solaris clients would 'just work'. I.e. - when I dropped a /64 onto my home lan - consisting of a handful of laptops and an OpenSolaris server - my Vista, Win 7 and Mac picked up the V6 network and started using v6 w/o even a re-boot.
The harder part is making a decision to shut off IPV4. It's at that point that you have to make a service availability decision.
Servers can have both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, there's no need for everyone to just switch over at once.
I strongly suspect that the big providers will start rolling it out over the next couple of years, and that this will filter down to local users after that.
My main problem is that very few home routers support IPv6, so they'll need to be replaced. But this can happen over time, with people on IPv4 being behind NAT, and thus having less accessibility to soem applications, they can make their own choices about when to upgrade.