[arin-discuss] Reminder that ARIN = US - was Re: Suggestion 2010.1 -- Initial Fee Waiver for IPv6 assignments to LRSA signatories

[Owen DeLong]

On Feb 9, 2010, at 2:23 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> Owen DeLong wrote:
>> On Feb 8, 2010, at 12:44 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>>> Keith W. Hare wrote:
>>> 
>>> "...it doesn't cost ARIN anything...."
>>> 
>>> Keith, I don't mean to single you out because Owen said exactly
>>> the same kind of thing, as did others, but I am taking this
>>> opportunity to mention that ARIN is NOT a profit-making entity,
>>> they CANNOT take a financial loss, there are no stockholders
>>> to deny dividends to, no owners.
>>> 
>>> A fee waiver is a COST the same as paying for the electric
>>> bill for the WHOIS servers, and a lease on the
>>> building ARIN is in, and the cost of the chairs in that building
>>> that the ARIN staff's butts are sitting on.
>>> 
>> A fee waiver is only a COST if someone takes advantage of said
>> fee waiver.  The portion of Keith's sentence (and mine, IIRC) that
>> you left off was "If nobody uses it, then..." as in
>> "If nobody uses it, it doesn't cost ARIN anything".
>> Yes, ARIN is us. What costs ARIN costs us.  Agreed.
>>> ALL MEMBERS OF ARIN that pay ANYTHING to ARIN - even if it's
>>> nothing more than a nominal $100 a year fee - are paying for those
>>> costs.
>>> 
>> And the theory behind this proposal is to increase the number of
>> participants that would be paying ARIN $100 on a continuing annual
>> basis at the equivalent cost of 12.5 years of service.
>>> The CORRECT SENTENCE is NOT  "cost ARIN anything"
>>> 
>>> The CORRECT SENTENCE is "cost YOU AND ME AND THE REST OF US anything"
>>> 
>> Respectfully, I disagree.  While ARIN is funded entirely by its
>> resource holders (note: resource holders != members although
>> there is significant overlap).  You can be an ARIN member without
>> resources and you can be a resource holder without being a member.
>> Anyway, ARIN is funded by its resource holders, but, from a liability
>> perspective, it is an independent entity. If ARIN absorbs too many
>> costs and does not collect sufficient fees from its resource holders,
>> the resource holders do not become liable for ARIN's debts. ARIN
>> becomes insolvent.
> 
> A non-profit like ARIN would have to be extraordinarily
> mis-managed to become insolvent like this.  In fact it would literally
> take criminal mismanagement.  To do it would mean ARIN would have
> to run at an enormous budget deficit for decades.  ARIN would
> quite literally have to become a government agency to manage this.
> 
Ted,
	You're going deep down a rat hole here. My point was that
the finances are more indirect than the governance.
To be clear, I like the RIR system, I think domain registration
 _IS_ a mess, and I do not support the idea of "privitization"
of address policy. (I don't think DNS is so much a mess as
domain registration, which is what I think you were referring to)


> 
>>> I think sometimes people get the feeling that there's this
>>> mythical pot of money at ARIN that has no connection to their
>>> wallets, I will remind everyone here that ARIN's expenses are
>>> OUR expenses.
>>> 
>> Sure, just like an ISP's expenses are passed along to its customers.
>> ARIN = US from a policy perspective.  From a funding perspective, it's
>> a bit more indirect.
>>> The question we need to be asking is will spending the money on
>>> a fee waiver get more flies to the IPv6 pot than spending the money
>>> on something else like outreach or education, or another Team ARIN
>>> comic? ;-)
>>> 
>> Well, the answer is that if it doesn't, then, we didn't spend the money.
>> If it attracts 5 flies, then, it only costs $6,250. If it attracts 10 flies, then,
>> it costs $12,500 in uncollected fees.  However, most of those
>> organizations would not be paying anything currently and still receiving
>> services from ARIN for their IPv4 and ASN resources. So, the usual
>> net is that we pay out $1,250 per fly attracted and receive $100/year
>> from each attracted fly for a likely long time.  We also gain the ability
>> to reclaim said fly's space if they stop paying $100/year, which, I would
>> argue is an even greater value proposition.
> 
> In my humble opinion Owen, it is exactly this kind of financial
> speculation/discussion that was missing from your original suggestion,
> which is why this discussion went down the "is it Moral" discussion
> path.
> 
I'm pretty sure that the board and FINCOM, specifically, have a pretty
good understanding of this.  I do take your point that I should have
included such information in my earlier posts on this subject.
I made the mistake of thinking it was self-evident.
> 
> suggestion, not policy
> 
Yes... In spite of my efforts to clarify this with others, I do keep tripping
over that myself.

>> but, I already signed the LRSA, already justified my existing
>> space, and, already qualified, paid for, and received an IPv6 /48 which
>> is actively routed and used.  IOW, I'm not looking for a freebie, I'm
>> looking to address a situation which I regard as detrimental to ARIN
>> as an organization... The vast number of legacy holders who have
>> not yet signed the LRSA and for whom we cannot account for the
>> status of their resources.
>> 
> 
> I wonder if they even know they are legacy holders?
> 
I'm pretty sure that most of the reachable legacy holders are aware that
they are legacy holders.  As to the legacy resources with unreachable
contacts, that's going to be an interesting question which I am hoping
that some recent policies (specifically section 12 or the NRPM and the
recent whois POC cleanup efforts).

Owen

> Ted
> 
>> Owen

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