[arin-ppml] Draft Policy 2010-10 (Global Proposal):GlobalPolicyfor IPv4 Allocations by the IANA Post Exhaustion- LastCall (textrevised)

[Owen DeLong]

On Nov 5, 2010, at 7:57 PM, George Bonser wrote:

> Owen said:
> 
>> IMHO, targeting legacy holders for non-compliance with today's
>> ARIN policies is dubious at best. I agree we should seek to actively
>> reclaim abandoned resources (resources where the ORG no
>> longer exists). I think we should possibly reach out and request that
>> ORGs no longer using their legacy resources voluntarily return
>> them.
>> 
>> Legacy holders received their resources under very different
>> requirements with very different expectations. While ARIN is the
>> successor registry of record, legacy holders (other than LRSA
>> signatories) have no agreement with ARIN and never agreed
>> to be bound by the ARIN policy process. I think attempting to
>> take such resources is an almost certain path to very costly
>> litigation with a very uncertain outcome. There are better things
>> for ARIN to do with their legal budget, IMHO.
> 
> In the case where the original legacy holder is still the owner of that
> space, I would agree.  If the space involved has been "sold" or
> otherwise transferred to someone else since ARIN came about, I would
> argue that the only expectation the current holder has is being out of
> reach of ARIN policy just because the space was originally issued to
> someone else under a different policy.
> 
Resources cannot be sold or transferred outside of the ARIN process
and I agree with you that would void the original holders rights.

> I would support the original entity's right to use (or not use) those
> addresses for whatever purpose they wanted.  The problem comes in with
> legacy space that is no longer under the control of the original holder
> of it.  It would seem to me that once those resources leave the control
> of the original holder, that policy expectation should no longer apply.
> 
That space is either abandoned or has been transferred outside of
ARIN policy. In either case, yes, reclamation is justified.

> 
> 
>> What we don't have is any form of agreement by the legacy holders
>> that the ARIN definition of justified applies to them. Non-signatories
>> to the LRSA are, thus, in an uncertain area. Signatories of the LRSA
>> are clearly protected from current and future ARIN policies in this
>> regard.
> 
> But what about people who aren't the original legacy holder that have
> obtained those resources since ARIN has come about?  Why are they exempt
> from current policy?  Why does holding certain IP address space place
> you into a "wayback" machine to decades ago in policy?
> 
I don't think that's what anyone was talking about here.

>> I agree that ARIN has a moral obligation to legacy holders.
> 
> Agreed.
> 
>> I am uncertain about what legal obligations ARIN has to legacy
> holders.
> 
> What about non-legacy holders of legacy space?
> 
To the best of my knowledge, No such thing as far as ARIN is
concerned. If the original holder of the space isn't holding it any more,
then, it is abandoned.

> 
>> I think that involuntary reclamation of legacy resources or
>> "termination of
>> services" to legacy holders is contrary to ARIN's best interests. I
>> think that
>> going beyond "termination of services" to the step of placing
> resources
>> back into the free pool and issuing them to other organizations would
>> be outright counter-productive for all concerned (except in the case
> of
>> clear abandonment).
> 
> It should have been the policy of ARIN that resources transferred out of
> the control of the original holder of them revert to community control
> via ARIN.  That horse left the barn long ago but it might not be too
> late to implement such a policy.  Legacy space no longer under the
> control of the original holder would immediately come under the same
> policy as any other space and would require the same transfer
> requirements as any other space from now going forward.  In other words,
> the current holder would be ok to use them but if they wish to transfer
> that space or if they go defunct, it comes under the current ARIN
> policy.
> 
That has always been the policy of ARIN other than under section 8
which allowed for transfers in light of merger and acquisition (now
section 8.2) and the recent (2009-1) addition of section 8.3 to allow
certain other forms of transfers.

There is no provision and has never been any provision for a transfer
to occur without subjecting the recipient of the transferred resources
to an RSA for those resources.

> While there is a strong argument that as the original holder of the
> space did not have any transfer restrictions and so it was fine for them
> to transfer the space to someone else, continuing that practice today
> for entities that might be several times removed from that legacy holder
> seems odd.  The only thing connecting a current recipient of that space
> with the legacy agreement is the numbers in the block itself.  I say
> that numbers cannot be held to this or that agreement and have no
> expectations, they are just numbers.  People and entities of people can
> have expectations but once that legacy holder no longer owns those
> resources, the only expectation a current owner has is "I can do
> whatever I want with these because these numbers are above the rules".
> I don't think that expectation is healthy for the community.
> 
I believe the original terms and conditions did restrict transfer.

Therefore, I think the rest of the paragraph is even further off the rails.

Owen