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Hello Nick,

On Thursday July 24 2025 17:02, you wrote to me:

 NB> I think at this point applications are accepted as long as applicants
 NB> can make a binkp connection, and send a netmail.

Yes that seems to be the case. But once they are accepted, they are seldom
checked again. If checked, only for a responding server, not for responding to
netmail. So we have many ghost systems in the nodelist...

 NB> But, I would like to also hope that most of us have some kind of
 NB> technical knowledge. I bet we'd both be surprised with what is really
 NB> the case, though. ;)

I am afraid you are right...

 >> All in all 100 Fidonet sysops who's node supports IPv6 isn't really
 >> that bad.

 NB> I agree. While there may be more nodelisted sysops than IPv6 systems,
 NB> There's definitely less than 100 people that regularly participate in
 NB> the English speaking side of Fidonet these days.

Don't gorget that these days many if not most messages in Fidonet are written
in the Cyrillic alphabet...

 NB> So if the IPv6 list is bigger than that active participants list, I'd
 NB> say it's doing pretty dang good.

Still... As I mentioned before, when promoting IPv6 in Fidonet I sometimes run
into a brick wall. The first brick wall is that of denial. No, denial is not a
river in Egypt. (Roy Witt) IPv6 is a hype, there is noo need for it, IPv4 is
functioning well and will remain to do so, if not for the rest of the century,
then at least for the coming decades.

For those confronted with te reality of IPv4 exhaustion and the shattered
brick wall of denial, there is brick wall #2. Hang on to IPv4 no matter what
tricks it needs.

IPv4 exhaustion may not be a serious problem for the incumbents in parts of
the world where IPv4 was historically issued as if it would last forever. But
for newcomers getting enough IPv4 to give all their potential customers a
globally routable IPv4 address is a serious problem. So serious that some of
the newcomers in the fast gowing fibre glass sector here in Europe have
stopped doing it. They have gone DS-Lite. They offer fully fledged IPv6 but
their IPv4 is behind CGNAT. Earlier this year I came across a German sysop
who's fibre company (the only one available in the area) did not offer a
globally routable IPv4 address. The logical course for him (IMHO) was to
upgrade his system to IPv6. But he decided to stick to IPv4 instead. There is
a company in Germany: feste-ip.net. They offer various services to customers
that no longer get a globally routable IPv4 address from their ISP. I have
used their services myself and reported about it in my Fidonews asrticles
about "DsLite emulation experiment". I used the less advanced option of the
IPv4 to IPv6 port proxy. It makes a sever IPv4 accessable but it requires the
customer to have working IPv6. He choose the more advanced option where the
customer does not have IPv6. Hanging on to IPv4 no matter what the
complications and the cost...


Cheers, Michiel

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