IPv4 address length technical design

[james.cutler at consultant.com (Cutler James R)]

On Oct 3, 2012, at 6:49 PM, Jimmy Hess <mysidia at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/3/12, Jay Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
>> So the address space for IPv8 will be...
>> </troll>
> 
> In 100 years, when we start to run out of IPv6 addresses,  possibly we
> will have learned our lesson and done  two things:
> 
>  (1)   Stopped  mixing the Host identification and the Network
> identification into the same bit field;   instead  every packet gets a
> source network address,  destination network address, AND  an
> additional  tuple of       Source host address,   destination host
> address;  residing in completely separate address spaces,  with  no
> "Netmasks",  "Prefix lengths", or other comingling of  network
> addresses and host address spaces.
> 
> And
>  (2)  The new protocol will use  variable-length address for the Host
> portion, such as  used in the addresses of CLNP,  with a convention of
> a specified length,  instead of a hardwired specific limit  that comes
> from using a permanently  fixed-width field.
> 
> Need more bits?   No protocol definition change required.
> 
> 
>> Cheers,
>> -- jra
> --
> -JH
> 

I suggest that the DNS name space should be considered to be an "hierarchical host address space" thus satisfying (1) and making (2) moot.