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

[David Farmer]

On 6 Sep 2008 Jeremy H. Griffith wrote:

> That's not where I start from.  I start from the belief that 
> a "successor" is necessarily bound to respect the acts of its
> "predecessors", which issued the legacy resources under terms
> that were very different from those now being offered:
> 
> *  No possibility of return on an involuntary basis.
>    This was essential to encourage us to do the work
>    that led to the current Internet.

Can you support this claim?  

I seriously doubt that anyone thinks someone empowered by the US 
government could or would do anything on terms so absolute as you 
suggest.  At the very least all contracts, verbal, written or implied, have an 
expectation to follow the law and there is a general expectation for parties to 
act in good faith.  

I also agree with you that ARIN is the successor and Legacy holders already 
have an implied contract with ARIN.  Further, in my opinion the point of the 
Legacy RSA is to document and amend that contract to reflect present 
realities. 

Given this, I believe it seems reasonable to expect a written contract to 
explicitly revoke the assignments is cases of illegal acts or acts of bad faith 
(eg violating the terms of the contract).  Additionally, it seems reasonable to 
me that if a legacy holder terminates the contract, and hence the original 
implied contract as well, then you terminate your rights to the resources. 

Above I said "and amend that contract to reflect present realities",  I think 
this cuts both ways.  Depending on when you received your assignments 
there was I believe an expectation of non-commercial use, remember the 
government was funding it.  So are there some terms and conditions that 
are new in the LRSA compared to original expectations?  Are there terms 
and conditions that have been eliminated or changed compared to original 
expectations?  Sure, this is only natural and as I said it cut both ways.  If you 
want the new rights that have evolved over the past 20 years or so, then you 
need to accept the new responsibilities too.

I have said several times, that fundamentally the LRSA is the right thing to 
do, but that doesn't mean that anyone should sign a bad agreement.  I think 
this is good progress and worthy of consideration.  At the very least it 
demonstrates to me that if you present reasonable and specific issues to 
ARIN, they will listen.  This has been slower than my liking, but if you 
consider the conditions have existed for over 10 years then maybe taking it 
slow is the right answer.





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