[arin-ppml] ARIN-prop-172 Additional definition for NRPMSection 2 - Legacy Resources

[Mike Burns]

>Grandfather Clause status is rarely transferable from an entity which holds
>it

>If the argument is that needs requirements in transfers are not beneficial
>in general, while I'm personally sympathetic to that position, I believe
>that particular battle has already been fought and lost. Are you proposing
>another run at it?

Hi Chris,

I think these "grandfather clause" exceptions enjoyed by legacy holders ARE
legally transferable, per Nortel selling Bay Network's address space without
any extant agreement between ARIN and Nortel.

Secondly, I watched this presentation at NANOG54, but couldn't tell what the
temperature in the room was towards treating legacy addresses as property.
http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog54/presentations/Monday/NANOG_54_02_Keynote_ipv4.wmv

My feeling is that maybe it is time for another run at removing the needs
test for legacy transfers, as the last run was an attempt to remove the
needs test from all transfers, not just legacy.

Regards and pardon the interruption,

Mike Burns

-----Original Message----- 
From: Chris Engel
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2012 12:36 PM
To: 'Milton L Mueller' ; arin-ppml at arin.net
Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] ARIN-prop-172 Additional definition for NRPMSection 
2 - Legacy Resources


> [Milton L Mueller] Like Paul V., you see this as something that only a few
> brokers want. I suspect that it is operators and ipv4 address holders that 
> will
> drive this, the brokers are only responding to that market. If the 
> operators
> don't want it, or if it harms operators or increases their relative costs, 
> it won't
> happen. On that we agree.

Prof. Mueller,

Philosophically, I'm rather sympathetic to the concept of ARIN acting as a 
simple registrar of record for transfers of already allocated address 
blocks. Due to the difference in dynamics between allocated and unallocated 
address blocks, it's clear to me that managing allocations from the free 
pool necessitated a more aggressive resource stewardship role from ARIN for 
those address blocks and that same role isn't necessitated for already 
allocated blocks.

That being said, the membership of ARIN seems to have expressed it's 
interest that ARIN continue it's stewardship role in regards already 
allocated resources and has done so by implementing a policy that sets 
certain minimum requirements/conditions upon transfer of allocated address 
blocks. Presumably the membership does so because it believes that it is in 
the best interest of the community and the operation of the internet as a 
whole to impose such requirements. While that belief is certainly not 
universal among the community (and I'm not a big fan of it myself), there 
appears to have been enough consensus on it that it was enacted into policy.

Unless I'm mistaken, what the policy proposal in question seems to result in 
is the carving out of a special exemption from those requirements for 
entities who acquire  address blocks (via transfer) from legacy address 
holders as opposed to acquiring them (via transfer) from non-legacy address 
holders. I'm failing to see what the rationale for that difference in 
treatment is? What is it that makes those policy requirements useful/fair to 
apply in one case and not useful/fair in the other? It's strikes me that 
sort of inequal application of policies/requirements isn't a great thing for 
the community as a whole.

I fully understand why the ORIGIONAL holders of legacy address space were 
treated differently in regards the resources they ALREADY had. Not only was 
there the uncertain legal question of attempting to impose conditions on 
entities ARIN had no contractual relationship with, but more importantly 
there was the consideration of unnecessary disruptiveness in attempting to 
change the conditions under which those entities had been holding those 
resources  for years. In other words, if entity A was widely recognized as 
holding a particular block for years before ARIN, it's alot more 
harmful/disruptive to try to revoke that recognition then it is to allow it 
an exemption to certain requirements imposed upon new registrants. The 
paradigm is not much different then the "Grandfather Clauses" which exist in 
certain laws/regulations. The rationale behind those is to limit the 
harm/disruption of imposing change on what had been upto that point 
relatively stable/well functioning systems whi
le still allowing changes to be introduced which are perceived as 
necessary/beneficial to the continuing function of the system as a whole. 
Grandfather Clause status is rarely transferable from an entity which holds 
it and the reasoning for that would seem to apply here, the disruption it is 
intended to avoid is already imposed by the act of transfer itself, no 
additional harm/disruption is realized by declining to allow the transfer of 
the exemption along with the resource, and indeed if the policy requirements 
are actually well founded and beneficial, perpetuating the exemption would 
impose harm in itself. So again, I fail to see why requiring a transferee to 
justify need (for example) when receiving non-legacy space is a good thing 
and suddenly turns into a bad thing when the space is legacy?

If the argument is that needs requirements in transfers are not beneficial 
in general, while I'm personally sympathetic to that position, I believe 
that particular battle has already been fought and lost. Are you proposing 
another run at it?


Christopher Engel

> Behalf Of Milton L Mueller
> Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 11:05 PM
> To: arin-ppml at arin.net
> Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] ARIN-prop-172 Additional definition for NRPM
> Section 2 - Legacy Resources
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > If I put the property religion aside, can we explore one of the points
> > you make below?
>
> [Milton L Mueller] Sure...
>
> > [is it] advisable for all the ISPs, End user network operators, content
> provider
> > networks, Universities, and everyone who operates the Internet to pave
> > the way for post-allocation services and interact with other addressing
> > registrars.
>
> [Milton L Mueller] For some of them the answer is emphatically yes, for
> others, it will make little difference either way.
> There is no homogeneity in this community with respect to their interests 
> on
> this matter. Tom Vest's attempt to poison the well notwithstanding, we 
> don't
> have to have an abstract debate about methodological individualism in the
> social sciences to agree on that simple fact.
>
> > My question would be why? As with any value proposition, do the benefits
> > they receive outweigh the price they have to pay?
>
> [Milton L Mueller] That depends on how big the price is and how big the
> benefits are. I suspect that both will be a function of the length of time 
> it
> takes to get to IPv6, if we get there at all. If we enter into an extended
> period of IPv4/v6 coexistence, say 10 years or more, increasingly scarce 
> v4
> resources will need to be carefully managed and husbanded. In that case,
> the value of having specialist address registrars and a competitive post-
> allocation services market would be quite enormous, and extend to quite a
> few operators. And the value of having ARIN and the other RIRs develop an
> ability to integrate multiple private, competing, efficient registrars 
> with a
> single, global authoritative database would be potentially quite 
> beneficial
> also - even if the transition to v6 was not so long.
>
> > All the networks around
> > the globe benefit from the central coordination of the RIR system as a
> > mechanism to participate in the Internet.
>
> [Milton L Mueller] problem is, it isn't really centrally coordinated. 
> There are 5
> RIRs and you have to search separately in each one. The RIRs and their 
> Whois
> are actually quite antiquated in some respects.
>
> > Because some address holders or individuals wish to trade IP address
> > space for money, it is not done without a cost. To operate under such a
> > model, those costs are pushed out to all those entities listed above
> > that currently benefit from the central coordination. Why should all the
>
> [Milton L Mueller] I have been saying all along that you can have central
> coordination AND competition/multiple registrars; we do it in DNS and we 
> do
> it in stock trades. So are you assuming that the model I am discussing 
> involves
> eliminating coordinated uniqueness? No wonder you think you're against it!
>
> > network operators across the Internet incur the costs of having to refer
> > to multiple regristrar systems and the inevitable disputes that will
> > result beyond those that already occur in the current model?
>
> [Milton L Mueller] Like Paul V., you see this as something that only a few
> brokers want. I suspect that it is operators and ipv4 address holders that 
> will
> drive this, the brokers are only responding to that market. If the 
> operators
> don't want it, or if it harms operators or increases their relative costs, 
> it won't
> happen. On that we agree.
>
> > It is only my opinion but the property argument is misleading. Some are
> > being led to believe that they can pay xxx amount of dollars for an IP
> > block and it will work across the Internet. Those dollars spent, or even
> > a US court order do not guarantee global connectivity to the Internet.
> > Correct me if I'm wrong, but there is a pretty large portion of the
> > Internet that does not care about what a US judge might decide. I think
> > we really need to weigh the costs and the benefits of the road we are
> > heading down.
>
> [Milton L Mueller] I think if RIRs or whatever registration system evolves 
> out
> of them accurately reflect the results of trades, then yes, damn right,
> someone ought to be able to pay xxx dollars for an IP block and those
> addresses should be as easily routable as they were before the trade.
>
> > Dan Alexander
> > Speaking only as myself
>
> [Tom Vest] speaking for Milton Mueller
> [Milton L Mueller] speaking for myself, too
>
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