[arin-ppml] Legacy Space authority

[Robert E. Seastrom]

<michael.dillon at bt.com> writes:

>> The IANA has primarily allocated 
>> address space to the Internet Registry (DDN NIC and InterNIC) 
>> and its successor, the RIRs. 
>
> Actually, I believe that the IANA primarily defines new SNMP MIBs. It
> also assigns TCP and UDP port numbers and various other kinds of
> Internet identifiers. As you pointed out, it has rarely ever allocated
> IP addresses directly preferring to delegate that work to the InterNIC
> and the RIRs. 
>
> I just wanted to emphasize that the IANA has a much broader role than
> just being the top-level of the IP address allocation hierarchy. Mind
> you, it was over 10 years ago when I was told about the volume of work
> being mostly MIB definitions. It may have changed since then.

Taken in context it appears that Ray's intent was to enumerate the
recipients of space from IANA and state that they were for the most
part the IR and RIRs, not to insinuate that this was IANA's primary
job function.  Given that MIBs and port/protocol numbers have only the
most tenuous relationship to address allocation policy, I'm not sure
what the point was in bringing it up - someone is doubtless charged
with keeping the soda machine stocked at IANA too, but that task isn't
germane to this list either.

                                        ---rob