[ppml] Policy Proposal 2005-1: Provider-independent IPv6

[Michael.Dillon at btradianz.com]

> No, you are completely missing the point. Establishing a policy that
> defines "provider independent space" sets a precedent that, for all
> practical purposes, will not be revokable.

Precisely my point. The precedent of PI address space
was set long ago in IPv4 policy. It is not revokable.
We have no choice but to put in place a reasonable PI
policy for IPv6, monitor its effects, and adjust it 
if and when necessary.

In addition, the legal and business climate in the ARIN
region sets its own sort of precedent. It is not acceptable
for ARIN to restrain trade. It is not acceptable for ARIN
to establish a monopoly of ISPs controlling the IPv6
address space. 

> those recipients of a valuable commodity will not be easily persuaded to
> give it up

They will if an open and publicly created policy tells 
them to do so. Of course, such a policy is likely to also
provide an alternative so it will be more of a migration
than a "giving up". The concept of geo-topological aggregation
is one way that could provide a future release valve for the
pressures of PI demand. And if we assume that one eighth of
the IPv6 space is given over to geo-topo addressing that 
still leaves six eighths (75%) of the IPv6 for 6 other
addressing/routing schemes.

> Those assignhments will be
> permanent, just as all SRI-NIC-era assignments ("the swamp space") are
> still filling the IPv4 routing table more than 10 years after they were
> last granted.

SRI-NIC assignees did not sign a registration services
agreement. This is a false analogy.

> And the hundreds of thousands of routes that are of concern to those who
> think about "big Internet" scaling problems are what we *will* see if a
> "PI space" policy is adopted. 

This statement, like most of your message, is filled with
linear thinking. You assume that the future is going to 
be just like the past, only moreso. But history shows that
it doesn't work that way. The Internet WILL NOT GROW AT ALL
unless business and society grows its usage of the Internet.
Historically, this type of growth results in quantitative
changes. Compare 1930's radio with today's radio. There are
many more radio stations today and vastly more radio listeners.
But modern radio is a very different beast from 1930's radio.
The same thing can be said about the growth of automobile usage.
Who could have imagined high-rise parking garages in 1920?

The biggest danger for ARIN is to have a failure of
the imagination. The Internet does not change in a linear
fashion and the future is not like a bigger form of the
past. Look at the SPAM problem and how it has changed 
email usage compared with 1994. Look at how widespread
private peering has wiped out the Internet exchange scaling
problems that were foreseen in 1994.

> Some organizations were good enough to transition off of pre-RIR IPv4
> assignments (anybody remember net 36.0.0.0) because of a sense of 
community
> and of doing good for the collective; that sense of community has long 
since
> vanished from the commercial Internet, so past behavior is most 
certainly
> not a good indicator of future behavior.

Again we agree. The past is not a good way to predict
the future.

--Michael Dillon