[ppml] Policy Proposal 2003-15: IPv4 Allocation Policy for the Africa Portion of the ARIN Region

[Michael.Dillon at radianz.com]

>I was under the under the impression that each policy is "independent"
>to each other, it's not like we are voting for a president, where we are
>voting for one or the other? Can we not vote yes or no for both
>policies? Surely then each policy will either be accepted or rejected by
>their own merits or faults?

Indeed you are correct. There is nothing stopping
people from supporting both policies or any combination
of policies. 

I believe that supporting 2003-15 has nothing to
do with addressing and everything to do with
supporting Africans in setting the policies for
their own region. I don't particularly care 
what the wording is in 2003-15 because the
fundamental truth is that Afrinic supports
this policy officially and the African ISPs
in the ARIN region also support it. Therefore
I would pass this policy regardless of its
content even if I thought that the content
was bad policy.

I don't pretend to fully understand the
social, political and legal climate in the
many countries of the African continent and
I will not suggest any particular alternatives
to them because I don't want to be counselling
people to break the laws of their country.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no relation
between 2003-15 and any of the policy
proposals that we are discussing for the
core North American ARIN region.

>Now, I encourage all the recent additions to mailing list (myself
>included) from the Sub-saharan region to carry on pushing for this goal
>we've set out to achieve, a goal which will benefit all in this region,

Remember that ARIN does not make policy 
DECISIONS on this mailing list and that 
the ARIN members meeting vote does not 
directly determine policy. Once the members
meeting has voted, the proposal goes to
the Advisory Council who may make changes
before they make a recommendation to the
Board of Trustees. The Board will then 
consider the recommendation from the AC
in conjunction with the input from other
sources, i.e. mailing list, meeting votes,
opinions polls, letters, petitions, consultation
with ARIN's lawyer, etc. After this, the
Board makes the actual decision about the
new policy.

I suggest that African ISPs from the African
countries that are still served by ARIN
should all sign a letter and post it to
the ARIN Board of Trustees. It would be
best for all of you to agree on the wording
of the letter on your own mailing list and
then each person can print and post their
own copy from their own country on company
letterhead. No guarantees, but if there
truly is consensus in the ARIN African
countries, this will clearly demonstrate
it to the Board.

--Michael Dillon

P.S. The rest of ARIN has wasted too much
time on this issue already. It is something
which has zero impact on ISPs operating
in North America.