[ih] The history of "This" 0.0.0.0/8 network?

[Dave Taht]

OK, so I have ploughed through many of the references on this thread,
and hope to incorporate some text from it.

However, I have drawn a conclusion from all this, that says that
the only reason 0.0.0.0/8 is not allowed is due to historical
circumstance, obsolete since 1989 at the very least, and perhaps much
earlier?

Only in RFC792 was there a protocol that attempted to do address
configuration using these low numbers, in a pair of ICMP messages
(Information Request & Reply) that asked for an IP address and responded
with one. Those messages were deprecated in RFC 1122, section 3.2.2.7.

ARP, bootp, dhcp, etc followed.

Secondly, the only truly invalid "zeroth" network address is
0.0.0.0/32. Everything else, since CIDR, should be allowing the zeroth
member of a subnet as a valid address. ?

(this is probably not the right forum to make these conclusions, (what
would be?), but it has been wonderful getting all this background from
from y'all from my pre-kindergarden years.....)