[arin-ppml] FW: Policy Proposal 2008-6: Emergency TransferPolicyfor IPv4 Addresses - Last Call

[Matthew Kaufman]

Kevin Kargel wrote:
> It is a shame that so many people take the lazy approach of trying to
> regulate a problem by artificially raising the cost of the commodity without
> thought as to how that is going to affect the average family. 
Yes. Instead of raising the price of beef when there's a shortage of 
cows, we should keep the price at the same government-set 
family-friendly value, and then have everyone stand in very long lines 
when it arrives at the butcher.

I believe this was actually tried, in practice, so there's millions of 
folks you can ask about how it went.
>
> Discussions of IPv4 market are probably the biggest thing that is keeping
> holders of unused IP space from allowing it to be reclaimed.  As long as
> people keep raising the hopes that this hoard will have great future value
> nobody other than a few good socially conscious people are going to release
> the resource.  
>
>
>   
Yes. The socially conscious people who also have zero transition cost, 
or who are so socially conscious that they are willing to donate their 
own time and equipment budgets (or those of their employer) to giving 
the addresses to others.

The much larger group of people who would really like to release address 
space, but who can't get the budget from their CIO aren't going to be 
providing to this cause. Also not releasing their addresses are people 
who have address space now, and are concerned that without a way to 
trade it around they might never be able to get any back at any price, 
so will just hold theirs "just in case."

And, of course we'll totally ignore the fact that transfers are already 
going on and will continue to go on because there is no way to stop them 
while continuing to allow legitimate business practices like merger and 
acquisition.
> First come first served till its gone.
>
>   
We know that ARIN has decided to follow that course *now*, we're 
discussing the part that happens *after* "its gone".

This would be easier if, at runout, all of the already-allocated 
addresses also stopped working entirely. But that's not the case, and so 
transfer (one way or another) will happen, and the only question is "how 
many lawyers do you have to hire?"

Matthew Kaufman