[ppml] APNIC policy proposal to create a regulated market in IPv4 addresses

[Iljitsch van Beijnum]

On 5-aug-2007, at 0:24, Scott Leibrand wrote:

> Take a look at the policy proposal.  There's a 24-month waiting  
> period for people who sell addresses.

I think this is a bad proposal. The legitimate needs that this  
proposal wants to serve can more easily be accommodated as follows:

1. The prospective new holder of the addresses requests address space  
under the regular rules
2. The prospective new holder is granted a certain amount of address  
space
3. The prospective new holder asks to receive the amount of address  
space granted in the form of the address blocks in question
4. RIR asks old holder if they're willing to give up the address  
space under the condition that it will be assigned to the prospective  
new holder
5. If no, nothing
6. If yes, addresses go back to RIR, RIR gives them to new holder

This would allow a market to form once IPv4 address space is  
depleted, but not before. But the important difference is that in all  
cases, the new holder is subject to the current rules. I.e., you  
can't transfer a legacy /16 to an organization that only needs a /24.  
(Which of course sucks if you want the transfer because you have a  
server on 172.31.0.1 and another on 172.31.255.254 without anything  
in the middle, but hey, sometimes life sucks.)