The August meeting of NOVALUG will be held in Arlington VA in support of a picnic honouring the birthday of Linux.

Originally, ARPANET ran the Network Control Program (NCP). The NCP had many limitations (including address space) and was in time superseded by TCP/IP. However, users were reluctant to make the transition. So, in 1982, Vinton Cerf and Jon Postel brutally forced users to switch from NCP to IPv4 by programming the Internet gateways to block all NCP traffic.

Now, almost 30 years later, it is the IPv4 address space that is approaching exhaustion. If current IPv4 address allocation policy continues, then IANA will allocate its last remaining /8 block in 2011 06, and the RIRs will allocate the last of their IPv4 addresses in 2012 04. Yet the demand for addresses will only grow due to the rapid proliferation of hand-held devices and the ongoing roll-out of Internet services in the third-world.

IPv6 is a complete rewrite that offers a vast address space, new services, and solutions to old problems. Yet, as with the change from NCP to TCP/IP, adoption has been slow due to inadequate transition planning and lack of incentives to change---until recently. While it is unlikely that someone like a Cerf or Postel will pull the plug, the ongoing demand for addresses means increasing pressure to change.

Both events will be held at 'The Barkley', 1016 South Wayne Street, Arlington VA, 22204. Guests attending these events should come to the main lobby, sign in, and will be directed to the proper location. South Wayne Street can be reached by Metro bus lines (16 Series) running from Pentagon or Pentagon City metros.