[ppml] Legacy users and ARIN duties

[Dean Anderson]

On Sat, 28 Jul 2007, John Curran wrote:

> Community consensus on policy changes prior to depletion will
> determine the nature of the transition.   Some advocate for a
> status-quo situation till depletion as businesses rely on predicable
> policies, and some recommend changes so as to affect the nature
> of the transition.   The ARIN Board resolution made it clear what
> we'd like to see in the 7 May 2007 resolution:
> <http://www.arin.net/announcements/20070521.html>.

  "WHEREAS, ongoing community access to Internet Protocol version 4 
   (IPv4) numbering resources can not be assured indefinitely; and,"

Through rationing based on a decreasing exponential, the IPv4 addresses
can be assured indefinitely, certainly beyond the next 10+ years.  The
pain of depletion, instead of being felt all at once, could be spread
out over a long period.

Looks like the ARIN board didn't get its facts straight in May.  There 
should be smart people on the board, who understand rationing.



> In particular, we'd like to have policies that encourage IPv6
> transition, and have asked the Advisory Council to consider
> this issue.  That has resulted in quite a few policy proposals
> and lots of community discussion and all of that is a good thing.
> 
> >I'm glad you brought up Enron. The Enron Board had to give back a lot of
> >money for their mismanagement.  Bechtel just returned a Billion dollars
> >to Boston/MA/Feds for their BigDig engineering and construction
> >failures.  I think an abrupt 'oops we're out of space' is going to
> >result in some very definite legal challenges to ARIN and its
> >management.
> 
> An interesting assertion, but I do not believe there is a valid claim
> that this will be an abrupt change, unless the community fails to
> act responsibly in light of all of the preparation.  

I also note that you seem to use community consensus to defend your
actions when convenient, and yet the statement above seems to put the
blame on the community for the consequences of any abrupt change. You
can't have it both ways.  There is a failure of leadership in assuming
both ways, and a failure to foresee the consequences of the abrupt
change.

I hope there aren't any negative consequences to abruptly running out of
IPv4 space. But I do note that the consequences are probably serious and
global, and not limited to ARIN, and involve governments and regions
that could use other means of diplomacy to resolve real and perceived
affronts to the fair allocation of limited resources.  And I also note
that a number of the people involved in making these decisions are
already involved in a number of other scandals and frauds, "hardball",
and silencing of critics.  


		--Dean


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