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

[Tom Vest]

On Aug 25, 2008, at 4:25 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:

>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: bmanning at vacation.karoshi.com
>>
>> 	ok, so I'm going out on a limb and will posit that properly used
>> 	in the new period of coexistance, that IPv4 addresses are -NOT-
>> 	going to be the gating factor - claims of "address scarcity"
> will
>> 	be used by those who wish to exploit fear, uncertainty and doubt
>> 	into monetary gain, either as a direct party or as a broker.
>>
>> when all anyone will ever need is a few addresses to
>> gateway into the increasingly smaller IPv4 world -
>> there will be an abundance of IPv4 space ...
>> (which will still need to be managed/accounted for)
>
> This is one scenario, it may turn out to be true. Indeed, a transfer
> market could hasten that result by encouraging the reallocation of
> address space to such "gateway" situations.
>
>> part of your premise seems to be that the purpose/use of IPv4
>> will not change.
>
> Untrue. I am sure that once IPv4 blocks command a price that  
> accurately
> reflects their value, and once they can be shifted more easily from
> lower valued to higher valued uses, their use will change  
> dramatically.
> That is one reason why I favor a more flexible transfers policy.
>
> If you want to understand what I am trying to tell you, stop thinking
> like a techie and start thinking like a policy person. I don't need or
> want to predict the precise uses and adaptations that operators will
> take. I do want to make sure that those decisions are based on an
> accurate assessment of the relative cost of the alternatives.
>
>> But the use/purpose of IPv4 will change and while there
>> may be some uncomfortable points in a transition/coexistance epoch,
>> the end result will be an abudnance of IPv4 ... which no one will  
>> find
>
>> interesting.
>> in a nutshell - a possible strategy is to repurpose IPv4.
>
> As a prognostication I find that plausible.
>
> But who makes the decision to repurpose? Operators or RIRs?  
> Referring to
> my just-sent reply to Tom Vest, the issue is not whether a  
> transition is
> needed, but where that decision is located and what role the RIRs play
> in facilitating it. I'm simply suggesting that given a scarce, legacy
> resource that everyone now needs, and an abundant, next-gen resource  
> the
> utility of which depends on a massive migration across two  
> incompatible
> standards, RIRs need to adopt policies that provide accurate price
> signals and which facilitate shifting the remaining ipv4 resources to
> their highest and best uses. I'm also suggesting that they refrain  
> from
> exploiting their leverage over both resource pools to impose a top- 
> down
> transition plan on operators.

Hi Milton,

When I write something to the ppml list, or any other policy list, I  
am basically addressing the RIR stakeholder community -- which, now  
that you've chosen to jump in, includes you.

When I lazily write that an RIR "should" or "must" do something, I am  
just using that phrasing as shorthand to refer to the members of that  
community, who call all of the shots. In that sense there is no  
external "RIRs" to impose anything -- there's just stakeholders who  
propose, consider, reject. modify, and occasionally achieve consensus  
and adopt policies. I am making an argument that other members of that  
community should consider some things favorably, and other proposals  
less favorably -- as presumably are you.

But that basic fact of self-governance means that all of the policies  
in place now must also be "top-down" impositions, and the resource  
transfer proposal itself will necessarily be a "top-down" imposition,  
unless by some miracle one of more of the policies was approved by  
unanimous consent.

A market transfer proposal won't just affect buyer and sellers; it'll  
affect all IP resources users, probably now and in the future  
indefinitely.

So the immediate choice confronting community members is not between  
some ideal freedom and an imposed top-down solution, but rather  
between the accumulated policies accepted by consensus to date (i.e.,  
the status quo), and one or more new consensus policies, e.g., for  
resource transfers, for a reservation for IPv6 transition, or others  
yet to be proposed...

I'll try to be more precise in future messages, so as to avoid any  
misunderstandings along these lines.

TV