interop show network (was: legacy /8)

[Jeroen van Aart <jeroen () mompl net>]

Someone in another thread mentioned interop show network. Which made me 
curious and I did a bit of searching. I found the following article from 
2008 about the interop show: 
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/27583

The show could setup an IPv6 only network in order to showcase it? 
That'd free up a /8.

"There are an enormous number of vendors that are either not ready for 
IPv6, or are simply unwilling to say that supporting IPv6 is the future 
requirement for enterprise network operators. This future is a lot 
closer than many expect. Only a handful of the large network hardware 
vendors at the show were in better shape. I'm sure that's because those 
companies that have been tracking or leading the IPv6 protocol work 
within the IETF; however, not many displayed that capability outright on 
their booths.
(..)
So why is Interop so late to the IPv6 world? No good answer seemed to be 
present. My guess is that it's because Interop itself has a /8's worth 
of IPv4 space – space allocated back in 1991 specifically for the 
Interop tradeshows. That's a lot of address space and a quick 
calculation shows that Interop has permanently allocated nearly half a 
percent of the presently used IPv4 address space. Maybe that address 
space should be returned to IANA? Maybe Interop should run a show where 
IP allocation is also part of the pre-show network planning. Then, 
maybe, they will see the light and realize that IPv6 is important! 
Perhaps with IPv6 available, Interop will also start showing off new 
applications and capabilities that IPv6 brings to the table."

The author though is an employee of hurricane electric. Which is 
interesting because I have 166 netblocks for that company in my 
permanent spam block list. Including 12*/24 blocks and 1*/18. And I have 
no doubt that will be increasing.

So I guess that puts it in a perspective.

Regards,
Jeroen