[ppml] Counsel statement on Legacy assignments?

At 8:23 AM -0400 10/5/07, William Herrin wrote:
>On 10/5/07, John Curran <jcurran at istaff.org> wrote:
>> At 9:00 AM +0900 10/5/07, Randy Bush wrote:
>> >if arin does not want to carry out its commitment to the community and
>> >to the USG when it was chartered [0], i am sure the community can find
>> >an organization more interested in public service.
>>
>> Intestesting enough, the presentation specifically includes
>> commitment to following RFC2050, and RFC2050 states:
>
>John,
>
>Relatively few legacy assignments were made after RFC 2050 was
>published. Even if RFC 2050 could be considered "the law" for address
>assignments, it couldn't apply retroactively.

Bill -
 
   Everyone who received address space received it under the
   direction of the IANA (and indirectly, the US government)
   prior to their respective RIR being formed.  The absence of
   a formal contract for such assignments means that there
   are many possible interpretations as to the particular rights
   and obligations of the parties.

   In any case, both legacy holders and ARIN appear to have
   obligations to the community.  ARIN will certainly do as the
   community directs, but one wonders if the legacy community
   would like us all to forget their community obligations and
   simply pretend that their assignments were done in a total
   contractual and community obligation vacuum...

/John