Re: What's 16 bits between friends?

[Brian Dickson <briand at ca.afilias.info>]

Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
> I suggest that there are only two reasonable approaches:
>
> 1. keep things the way they are now
> 2. move to variable length addresses
>
> I'm assuming that we'll be doing 1. for quite some time and move to 2. 
> afterwards. 
The later we do 2, the less benefit there is.

The problem is, that we don't *have* those 16 bits to reclaim, ever, 
since we give them away with *every* allocation from space that is 
assigned to us.

Once you do even one assignment, the odds of you being able to reclaim 
all that later are slim to none, and this happens at all levels.

If you wait until it's urgent, it is already too late.

The earlier the move is made, the more benefit and less pain there is.

It doesn't even require existing assignments be changed at all - which 
is the compelling part of the argument. It's a forward looking move.

No baby, no bathwater. No throwing anything out. No renumbering, only 
smarter assignments once the deployed base can start using it.

Brian

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