[arin-discuss] [ppml] Counsel statement on Legacy assignments?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: arin-discuss-bounces at arin.net
>[mailto:arin-discuss-bounces at arin.net]On Behalf Of Dean Anderson
>Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 2:20 AM
>To: Keith W. Hare
>Cc: Ron Cleven; arin-discuss at arin.net
>Subject: Re: [arin-discuss] [ppml] Counsel statement on Legacy
>assignments?
>

>My position is just this:
>
>1. Legacy's have unencumbered rights through agreement with the
>government.  Those rights are very special and very valuable. If you
>give them up, you can never get them back.
>
>2. ARIN entered into a bargain with the government that requires ARIN to
>provide services to Legacy's for free, in return for opportunities on
>future assignments and other privileges.
>

No Dean.  The very extent of what this alleged "bargin" allegedly covers is
what is under dispute.  You have not offered up proof needed to establish
this claim, and I frankly do not think you can because I don't think
it exists.

Your trying to convince me and everyone that this "bargain" exists by
saying it exists, over and over again.

This is a matter of faith, not of facts.  It is no different than the
people who claim that the Bible is the literal Word of God, then when
asked for proof, respond by saying the Bible is the literal word of God.

Your making a religious argument, plain and simple.

>3. Legacy's cannot be forced to give up these rights, by ARIN or even by
>the government.  The government can't break the agreement, either, and
>can't pass an ex-post-facto law modifying the agreement unilaterally.
>

Wrong again.  The US government can take away ANY right in the US not
explicitly
guarenteed in the US Constituion, and they can redefine rights that are
guarenteed so narrowly as to be almost useless.

You think you have freedom of expression in the US do you?  Sorry, guess
what.  You
can write a book that explains the algorithim for encoding DVDs and publish
it in the US under your constitutional rights just fine.  But, the second
you
digitize and publish digitally ANY SCRAP of that book that covers that
algorithim - bang, your going to be arrested for violating the DMCA. All
the government had to do was define freedom of speech as
freedom to talk or print books.  Not, apparently, freedom to type words
on to an electronic forum.  I sure hope that we never run out of trees!!

And that's not the only one.  Look at US copyright law.  What did the
Founding Fathers give us for rights in the US constitution?  What do we have
today?  Copyrights that last 70+ years after the author died?  WTF is
that?  Talk about recinding a right the public had!

And as for rights in a contract that AREN'T explicitly guarenteed - watch
out!
Implied rights don't mean diddly squat.  Do you know how many business
contracts have
been voided out because of non-specific language?  Tons!  Why do you think
that
SCO is going bankrupt?  They interpreted a vague contract to mean they had
UNIX
rights to sue - and a judge came along and changed the meaning in a few
sentences
in a paragraph - and bang, a multimillon dollar company is bankrupt, just
like that.

Wake up Dean, your living in a dreamworld.

>4. Legacy's should act as a group to protect these rights.  They should
>work together to oppose ARIN legal claims that there are no rules or
>that Legacy have no legal rights, and to oppose in Court efforts to
>deprive Legacy's of these rights.  A Legacy Registry ensures that we
>only have to do this once and won't repeat it every six months.
>

The very essence of this "unencumbered value" you attribute to Legacy
IPv4 numbers is the fact that they HAVE NO RULES.  Now you are telling
the Legacy holders to band together and pay money - give up what is unique,
the
anarchy and cost-freeness of legacy assignments - to protect the anarchy
and cost-freeness of legacy assignments.

You are a piece of work, Dean.

By the time you get done with any Legacy holders dumb enough to give you
the time of day, they are going to be
far worse off than anything the rest of us could dream up for ARIN to do
to them.  Frankly, any Legacy holder that jumps on whatever bandwagon
you think you are going to offer them -deserves- you.

>5. Don't sign an RSA on your Legacy space.
>
>
>As you pointed out, no one has asked for donations. But the reason for
>that is because they agreed in the beginning that these Legacies would
>be free.  _All_ they can ask for are donations. But they don't _want_ to
>ask for donations; they _want_ you to sign the RSA; they _want_ to
>remove rights; What good is that to them?
>

they, they, they, they.  Who is they?  Oh I forgot - it's US, everyone
on this list here - PLUS the legacy holders who are also ARIN members and
who are attending meetings and contributing input.

So basically it's you against the world.  Oh sorry, I didn't realize that
this was what this is all about.  Your not happy unless everyone is
dumping on you, and if they are not you do what you can to get under
us, and if we move away, you follow along.  I guess I just made your day.

Dean, please, for your own sanity,
go find some other cause that really is a true lost cause to fight on.
The Republican National Committee could probably use you.  This isn't
the situation with the Legacy holders here and your doing them a
disservice to try to make it seem as though it is.

What the Legacy holders should do is take a look at the existing RSAs,
read them, see if they like them or not, if they do then sign.  If not,
don't sign and wait for another to come along that they like better.

What the Legacy holders should NOT do is listen to you telling them to
STAY IGNORANT and NOT READ the documentation in the existing or any
future RSAs.  They should make uo their OWN MINDS based on their OWN
interpretation, NOT YOURS or ANYONE ELSES.

>
>> As far as I can tell, the people who have the most influence are the
>> people who put together coherent, well written proposals, regardless
>> of the size of their employer.
>
>I think your statement is true in most situations.
>
>For example, both FSF(GNU) and the LPF also started off as longshots,
>both founded by Richard Stallman.  But both have changed the industry
>and the world.

Absolutely wrong, once more.  The SOFTWARE that was under the GPL
changed the world.  And without the GPL that software would have still
happened and still changed the world.  RMS likes to tell the tale like
he single-handedly created the Open Source movement.  What rubbish and
rot.  A good percentage of the stuff people have put under GPL
was copied from BSD licensed code.  You GPL people seem to forget that
all of the time.  And the USL/BSD/ATT lawsuit laid the groundwork for
a lot of the legal underpinnings the FSF uses today, another conveniently
ignored debt of gratitude by the RMS supporters like yourself.

Dean you illustrate the fundamental dichotomy of the GPL and the GPL
supporters.  "In order to be free, you have to do it the way WE tell
you to do it, and you have to sign away your rights to US."  And people
come running with their tongues hanging out to suck that stuff up as
fast as they can.  Yeah, you understand freedom all right - you just
DON'T WANT ANYONE ELSE to HAVE it.  For all your talk of control - you
desire control far, far more than anyone else on this list.

>Now, I'm getting Legacy people together offlist to work on a proposal to
>solve Legacy problems at ARIN without compromising Legacy rights. You've
>got nothing to lose by working together with other Legacy's to preserve
>your rights in unencumbered IP space, and everything to lose by not.
>
>Email me offlist for details if you are interested. There are already a
>number who are interested.
>

Sure, sure.  I'll believe it when I see them put their money where your
mouth is.

Ted