[Comment-Aso] Re: IP address space allocation: not a crisis, let's lighten up.

[John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com>]

> you can't claim that 'the address space isn't
> being used up so you can take the brakes off'

I wasn't suggesting dismantling the brakes.  Merely suggesting that we
not step on them quite so hard.  And suggesting that we do enough
experiments now at replacing the brakes with market feedback, so we will
be able to transition to a market someday, rather than never.

> the system definitely needs hooks for 
> rational signalling and feedback(data)-based growth/evolution.
> but *we* have to build them; ARIN never signed up for that.

OK, let's build them.

If ARIN was a good steward of the address space, it *would* sign up
for learning how to manage the space better than ARIN does today.  But
it is content to do the same thing into perpetuity, whether or not
that's appropriate.

> (c) don't see why NAT type stuff is so bad
> 	for cell phone systems or many other systems

Well, Tachyon.net spent a week rewriting their software while I was
running the net at Burning Man, so the ITV guys could run streaming
video from Burning Man to users on the Internet.  Tachyon had assumed
everyone could run NAT too; the problem is that you can't put servers
on the wrong side of NAT.  You can't even put FTP clients on the wrong
side of NAT, which also caused major trouble when ITV merely tried to
upload non-streaming videos to a server located on the Real(TM)
Internet.

kc, you seem to be saying that ordinary end users will never need to
provide Internet services at published addresses from mobile
locations.  Even assuming you could know every kind of Internet
service to be invented in the future, it seems a dubious statement.
It reminds me of the Motorola guy who told me we'd never need mobile
data service because "it's unsafe to type when you're driving".  Duuh,
not every mobile user is in, or operating, a vehicle; not every data
service involves typing.  kc, not every mobile data user will be
speaking voice over a 1999 cellphone.  At least if I have anything
to say about it!!!

I hope that when my car is permanently on the 'net, I'll be able
to access it at a known address, rather than it being some anonymous
and ever-changing IP address.  Else how will my smart eyeglasses lead
me to where it is in the parking lot, or ask it to drive over and pick
me up?

	John