[ppml] Policy Proposal: 2007-12 IPv4 Countdown Policy Proposal

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: ppml-bounces at arin.net [mailto:ppml-bounces at arin.net]On Behalf Of
>Stephen Sprunk
>Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2007 10:24 PM
>To: Leo Bicknell
>Cc: ARIN PPML
>Subject: Re: [ppml] Policy Proposal: 2007-12 IPv4 Countdown Policy
>Proposal
>
>

>
>One must always remember the law of unintended consequences when trying to
>regulate people into something they won't like and probably won't feel is
>just.
>

People don't like the fact that IPv4 is ending, period.  You cannot get
around this.  They don't like the fact they are going to have to put money
and labor dollars into renumbering to IPv6 or buying NAT gateways or
whatnot.  So no matter what, the ending of IPv4 allocations, whether natural
or artificial, is going to produce a set of unintended consequences that
are going to be pretty much the same.

Your argument is thus: "we should ignore IPv4 runout because if we try
to affect it, it will cause consequence A.  Oh and by the way, when we
eventually get to IPv4 runout, consquence A is going to happen"

What is YOUR answer to the question of what is the alternative to
"regulating people into something they don't like"?  It sounds to me
pretty much like "letting something happen to people that they don't like"

End results in either case: identical.

>> There are alternatives, Owen DeLong just wrote about what
>> would probably be considered the opposite viewpoint in
>> another message, I quote:
>>
>>     I believe that the system will function and that there is no need
>>     to  do anything different until ARIN is unable to fulfill requests.
>>     At that time,  ARIN should fulfill request it can on a
>>     first-come-first-serve basis and provide  a polite apology in
>>     response to requests which cannot be fulfilled.  I do not  believe
>>     a change of policy is required in order for ARIN staff to do this.
>
>For the record, I support Owen's position.  Not because the end game is
>pretty, because it obviously isn't, but because it makes no sense to me
>that, as addresses are returned to (or reclaimed by) ARIN, we wouldn't be
>able to hand them out again.  I also don't like the idea that
>folks wouldn't
>be able to use the trade-in policies, if ARIN happened to have
>blocks large
>enough to, for instance, consolidate the announcements of someone who
>currently has several hundred discontiguous blocks.  Freezing the IPv4
>registry on a particular date isn't necessary.  ARIN (and the other RIRs)
>can still do many useful things even if there's no more "new" space left.

No more "new" space?  So you don't call IPv6 allocations "new"  Who is using
them now?!?!

What these arguments seem to boil down to is "I don't like laws or policies
or regulation of any type, whether bad or good, so I'm always going to
oppose additional regulation no matter what, and I'm always going to
advocate for removing regulations that curently exist, no matter what"

In other words, the classic "I don't have a real answer for the problem"
kind of response.  In the US people who advocate that position are generally
classed as Libertarians and seem to be married to someone named "Pollyanna"

Ted