The attentive reader may question the need for different `EtherTypes` for IPv4 and IPv6 while the IP header already contains a version field that can be used to distinguish between IPv4 and IPv6 packets. Theoretically, IPv4 and IPv6 could have used the same `EtherType`. Unfortunately, developers of the early IPv6 implementations found that some devices did not check the version field of the IPv4 packets that they received and parsed frames whose `EtherType` was set to `0x0800` as IPv4 packets. Sending IPv6 packets to such devices would have caused disruptions. To avoid this problem, the IETF decided to apply for a distinct `EtherType` value for IPv6. Such a choice is now mandated by :rfc:`6274` (section 3.1), although we can find a funny counter-example in :rfc:`6214`.