[arin-ppml] ARIN releases new version of the Legacy Registration

[Stephen Sprunk]

John Curran wrote:
> On Sep 7, 2008, at 12:55 AM, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
>> Jeremy H. Griffith wrote:
>>> *  No possibility of return on an involuntary basis.  This was 
>>> essential to encourage us to do the work that led to the current 
>>> Internet.
>>
>> There was no statement either way about the basis on which addresses 
>> were assigned
>
> Just to be clear, there was such a statement made in 1996 by Jon 
> Postel (via RFC 2050) that reads "The IANA reserves the right to 
> invalidate any IP assignments once it is determined the the 
> requirement for the address space no longer exists."  As the original 
> IANA, Jon certainly knew what conditions were applicable to existing 
> IP assignments, even if those who received the assignments did not...

While a case could certainly be made that such a rule applied to 
assignments made after the publication of RFC 2050, I don't see how Jon 
had the legal authority to apply that retroactively.  That he "knew" it 
did is not binding since the other parties arguably did not.

S