Comment 19 for bug 24828

Vicenzo Ciancia wrote: "I think it would be better to disable it until a better solution is found. I have seen bugs wait for months an important decision leaving users machines broken, when a quick fix was known ..."

I agree 100%. And with Vicenzo's other comments.

Trent Lloyd wrote: "Windows Vista is also shipping with IPv6 enabled by default, perhaps this will help weed out the devices which don't do what they are supposed to do and violate the DNS specifications."

This is interesting. Have any Vista users experienced similar problems?

Trent, on your other points, I just can't accept your perspective.

1. IPv6 is far from being imminent. It's been upcoming technology for five years now and it's been realised that IPv4-based NAT etc have solved the IPv6 problems adequately. Ubuntu has no control over the ISPs and routers which don't handle IPv6 properly. What you're effectively asking _me_ is to be committed to driving IPv6 adoption. I'm not! I'm committed to a bunch of other things which is why I've tried Ubuntu, but I did not simultaneously sign up to the IPv6 crusade.

2. in fact, IPv6 was not even something I had thought about (in my personal life - professionally I have had reason to) before installing Ubuntu. I bought a cheap router because I'm not into wasting money, and if I had spent more it would not have been because of IPv6. I didn't use IPv6 as a procurement criterion when selecting my ISP. Surely most users would say the same thing.

3. I am fully aware of the theoretical benefits to the world, of everyone adopting IPv6; But there are currently in practice no user-perceived benefits from using IPv6, and yet many user-perceived disbenefits. Search for IPv6 in Linux Format's forums (at www.linuxformat.co.uk). Every single reference I looked at was negative ("why doesn't this stupid thing work?!"): not one was positive ("I just love Linux because I can use IPv6 at last!!").

Ubuntu is the first thing that's made IPv6 an issue for me. Everything I have read about Ubuntu makes me think that Ubuntu should take this seriously as an inhibitor to adoption. The current default penalizes people who've done nothing stupid.

If you really want to promote IPv6 in the ecosystem, consider making _handling_ IPv6 the default for server configurations of Ubuntu, but _issuing_ IPv4 requests the default for client configurations of Ubuntu. Actually this idea has drawbacks too (essentially because no machine is a pure server, and because people might set up such in their homes) but the point is that it's infrastructure-side where IPv6 adoption has to be driven, not client-side - and especially not home-client-side.

I respect Kristian Hermansen's conciliatory suggestion, but I am not keen on it. It's bad to offer users a choice between options they don't understand. If you offer them such choice, you must of course tell people to select IPv4 unless they really really know what they're doing. My preference would be not to bother, just to disable IPv6 by default, and to offer a FAQ aimed at enabling IPv6 post-install for such users as may wish to.