[arin-ppml] Abandonment of 103/104

[Leo Bicknell]

In a message written on Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 08:01:46PM -0500, William Herrin wrote:
> I'm deeply disturbed by this post. My understanding is that the AC's
> mission is to help the community craft the best possible policy which
> expresses its will and to help the process move smoothly. Killing a
> well supported proposal this early obstructs the community's role in
> the policy process.

There seems to be a myth that policy ideas cannot be discussed
without a proposal on the table.  I have no idea where that idea
originated, but it is demonstratibly false.  For instance, every
face to face meeting has the "Open Policy Hour" specifically to
discuss things not on the table.  PPML archives are filled with
discussions that either never resulted in policy, or were discussed
without a proposal for months or years before a proposal was put
forward.

What having a proposal does is put requirements on the discussion.
Timelines.  Presentations at meetings.  These can be useful, but
also in the early days of a proposal can be harmful; rather than
letting the idea develop and turn into something good it is shoehorned
into a timeline.

As for this particular proposal, it appeared to me it was not ripe.
Long proposals almost never pass, and not only is this one long but
it touches on many different areas.  I believe in its current form
it has no chance of passing, as the details need to be refined,
simplified, and folks brought on board before there is a reason to
have a formal proposal.

The mailing list has also made something clear to me recently.  The
community does not know what it wants to do with IPv6.  There are
several competing factions, all basing their positions off of, well,
wild assumptions.  As an AC member, this makes me sour on all IPv6
policies.  We need to form some cohesion around basic principals
before we go crafting policy details.

I encourage you to continue to discuss your ideas on PPML, and see
if you can build support and/or refine the ideas.  It's quite
possible they will become ripe in the future and turn into a policy.

-- 
       Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
        PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
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