[ppml] question on 2006-2 v6 internal microallocation

[Michael.Dillon at btradianz.com]

> 1. Are you in favor or opposed to this policy?

I support the policy to give micro-allocations for 
internal infrastructure.

> 2. You mention that you can guarantee that there will be zero impact on
> the public Internet routing table. 

I think you misunderstand. In the past, whenever anyone
proposes smaller than normal sized allocations, many
people object that this will result in a large number
of new entries in the global routing table. I was merely
pointing out one situation that exists today where 
allocations from ARIN or other RIRs do not end up in
the global routing table.

In other words, there is not a direct relationship
between RIR allocations and the number of entries
in the public Internet routing table. RIR policies
need to support the needs of *ALL* users of
Internet Protocol (IP) networking technology, not
just the people who peer in the default-free zone 
of the public Internet.

> The original policy had some text saying that this micro-allocation MUST
> not be routed.  But there were objections about ARIN not setting routing
> policy.  So this text was completely dropped from the current policy
> proposal.

Very right. ARIN does not set policy for the routing
table and the routing table does not decide ARIN's 
policies.

> Do you think 2006-2 is better with or without text on if the
> micro-allocation for internal infrastructure should not be routed in
> the global Internet?  If you think text should be added to 2006-2 about
> routing this space, do you prefer weaker or stronger text?

ARIN is not the Internet mummy. Why should ARIN policy say
what should or should not be done outside the scope of its
authority?

On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with the statement:

   Due to the fact that these address blocks will be
   used for blahditty-blahditty-blah, it is expected that
   they will not be announced in the default-free zone
   of the public Internet.

One of ARIN's duties is education and it is entirely 
appropriate for policies to be clearly written and include
explanations of the context in which the policy was 
created. This is why charters and other such legal documents
have something called "the preamble". People have always
felt that laws, contracts, and other legal agreements should
have a clear context.

--Michael Dillon