Convention of Winterthur
The Convention of Wintherthur is a convention on the rights of Internet users to IP address space.
The main outcome of this convention is the fact, that every person walking on the globe has the right to allocate at least 1024 devices with an IP-address to give it Internet connectivity. One of the Internet standards that was a result of the Convention of Winterthur was the IPv3.1416β standard, that became the IP numbering standard of the 21st century.
The location of the Convention of Winterthur was on top of a very high mountain. For this reason, the convention is often called the Winterthur Summit.
The fact that the organizers of the Convention of Winterthur were all part of the board of the Global Skiing League is purely coincidential.
The Case for an own Convention[edit]
The inhabitants of Winterthur got fed up by the fact that other Swiss cities like Geneva and even Lugano had their own conventions, the Convention of Geneva and the Convention of Lugano respectively, and Winterthur itself did not, that they decided to organize this Convention of Winterthur. If they would have had their own convention earlier, this would not have been necessary. As one spokesman put it: If this convention would have been on the size of bananas or the limitation of air pollution on Swiss high roads, we would have dedicated the convention to that, IPv3.1416β just happened to come along at the right time at the right place.
In 2004, a proposal was made for the Convention of Winterthur to protect young lambs from being sacrificed to the meat industry. As most members of the city council of Winterthur did not care less about the fate of young lambs, this proposal was rejected at an early stage.
In 2006, a proposal was made for the Convention of Winterthur that would sort out environmental issues in Central Europe. Even though Switzerland was interested in sorting these issues, the rest of Central Europa did not care less and the proposal was torpedoed by some Rhetoroman dissidents.
Economical Effects of the Convention of Winterthur[edit]
Traditionally, the main income of the city of Winterthur comes from the insurance business and industry. With the Convention of Winterthur the city hopes to attract more tourists. The building in which the IPv3.1416β standard was formalized is now a museum that welcomes over 12 million visitors per year. The Winterthur Pie, a very sweet sort of pie, has become world famous and is exported to all countries of the world. The booming tourist industry of Winterthur has inspired other cities in the world to host similar conventions.
An example of such a convention is the Convention of Toyama that tries to protect the rights of new born rabbits world wide.
Effects of the Convention on the City of Winterthur[edit]
Winterthur has an area of 68.1 km2 (26.3 sq mi). Of this area, 27% is used for agricultural purposes, while 41.4% is reserved for IPv3.1416β address space. The rest is used for agglomeration. The reason for reserving so much of the area for IP address space is the fact that the mayor of the city anticipated the popularity of the new protocol. Every year, a few houses are broken down in order to expand the area that can be dedicated to IP address space. To compensate for this, huge sky scapers are built in the city and it is estimated that by the year 2050, half the population of Winterthur will live in such a sky scraper.
Convention of Winterthur Hooliganism[edit]
Every now and then, Winterthur is in the news because of IPv6 hooligans. These hooligans believe that is a crappy standard and the the IPv6 standard should have had a proper chance. They maintain, that the IPv3.1416β standard was only adopted by the general public because of its simplistic approach, which resulted in millions of stand alone computers with limited functionality all over the world. Proponents of the IPv3.1416β argue, that at least this standard has been adopted by the general public, as opposed to more sound but less popular standards.