[arin-ppml] ARIN's Authority - One view (was: Re: LRSA concerns)

[Tom Vest]

On Aug 25, 2008, at 12:38 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:

>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: John Curran [mailto:jcurran at istaff.org]
>> It is questionable whether we can
>> keep the present Internet growing simply using IPv4.
>
> Just to be clear, to advocate efficient management of scarcity in the
> IPv4 space does NOT entail a belief in indefinite extension of IPv4.  
> It
> is simply asserts that the mechanisms used to manage IPv4 address
> resources should reflect the actual situation in that resource pool.
>
>> an irresponsible act with global economic consequences.  Due to
>> the inherent nature of IPv4/IPv6 interoperability, it's going to
>> be necessary for many organizations to run both in parallel for
>> some period of time in order to effect the transition.
>
> Precisely, so IPv4 is going to be with us for a long time. Therefore  
> its
> address space must be managed effectively and efficiently for some  
> time.
> I have trouble understanding why this point is even controversial.  
> There
> seems to be an attitude that as soon as the last free IPv4 block is
> allocated we can stop worrying about IPv4 resource management and
> (somehow) start pushing everyone into v6. This is a dangerous fantasy.

Hi Milton,

There's a great, deflationary T-shirt circulating around the ops  
community with the caption:

"IPv6: 96 more bits, no magic"

It should probably be updated to the more accurate: "no more magic...  
but no less."

Put another way, a world of uniform, homogenous IPv6 would be "as  
nice" as a world of uniform, homogenous IPv4, only potentially 2^96  
times larger.

Granted, we haven't had the former in a long time now, but the latter  
would assure that that address-related partitioning is largely  
voluntary -- and I think most people would agree that that would be a  
dramatic, positive improvement.

> Scarcity doesn't go away because you don't like it and wish it weren't
> there. Market forces don't disappear because you don't like markets  
> and
> refuse to organize them properly. Conditions of scarcity in the ipv4
> space will affect the conduct and behavior of organizations, ISPs and
> indirectly, internet users for at least a decade.

If you face a choice between managing extreme scarcity, with ever- 
diminishing returns, forever, or managing a transition to a state  
where this particular scarcity is no longer very challenging at all  
(esp. when there are others to worry about in either case), what makes  
the former strategy inherently superior?

Without a transition strategy, there's no reason to assume the term  
for such requirements should be measured in years, or even decades.

Focusing on scarcity management in any context other than as part of a  
transition strategy is a self-fulfilling dead end.

> So if you don't have a strategy for responding to v4 address scarcity
> you're not being responsible. If you don't like transfers in ipv4 tell
> me what that strategy is.