Why couldn't MAC addresses be used instead of IPv4|6 for networking?

Re:Why couldn't MAC addresses be used instead of IPv4|6 for ... by hapless on Wednesday July 25, 2012 @03:46PM (#4292665)

No reason at all. Novell Netware did exactly this.

The host portion of your address was your MAC. Networks were identified by their local netware servers.

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Re:Why couldn't MAC addresses be used instead of IPv4|6 for ... by neild on Wednesday July 25, 2012 @03:49PM (#4292674)

That's pretty much exactly what IPv6 with stateless autoconfig does--network address in the upper 64 bits, MAC address (slightly modified) in the lower 64.

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Re:Why couldn't MAC addresses be used instead of IPv4|6 for ... by astrodust on Wednesday July 25, 2012 @04:12PM (#4292787)

This is one of the reasons why IPX was a bad idea and never took off. Automagical discovery is always great until it doesn't work.

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Re:Why couldn't MAC addresses be used instead of IPv4|6 for ... by bdunbar on Wednesday July 25, 2012 @04:37PM (#4292882)

and never took off.

IPX was everywhere NetWare was.

NetWare got into everything, like dust, in the 80s and part of the 90s.

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Re:Why couldn't MAC addresses be used instead of IPv4|6 for ... by astrodust on Wednesday July 25, 2012 @07:56PM (#4293667)

Being prevalent, which it no doubt was, and being pervasive are two different things.

IP has a way of worming itself into every little thing. IPX never really escaped from the desktop network environment.

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Re:Why couldn't MAC addresses be used instead of IPv4|6 for ... by bdunbar on Wednesday July 25, 2012 @08:12PM (#4293714)

I did not know that pervasive was synonym for 'took off'.

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