[arin-ppml] [arin-council] Returning Legacy Space to IANA. Attorney client communcation.

[Paul Vixie]

note that i'm speaking about confidential matters even though staff has
informed me that not every AC member has signed the NDA.  please sign and
return these agreements.

bicknell at ufp.org (Leo Bicknell) writes:

> There is likely a lower percentage of folks in the ARIN region who have
> thought about the issue and/or consider it hoarding than in the rest of
> the world.

if we're now talking about the appearance of hoarding by the rest of the
world then i'm able to join that discussion.  if on the other hand we're
still talking about presumed actual hoarding by the "reasonable person"
standard then i'd have to object to the premise of any/all questions.

> I belive the concept of laches applies here.  If ARIN had gotten a
> majority of legacy holders under contract, and worked with a large number
> of the most over-IP'ed to return part of their allocation (e.g.  what
> happened with Sandford) then ARIN might have a leg to stand on that what
> is left is part of the ARIN system.  However, ARIN chose not to actively
                                                    ^^^^^^^
> engage the legacy folks for going on 10 years, has contracted only a
> small percentage (by absolute number), and right sized a miniscule amount
> of the allocations.

perhaps you will feel that i'm still using language too precisely, but i've
been on the board going on five years and i watched ARIN carefully before
that and i can find no record of a "choice" being made on this topic.  if
what you really mean is "it was a hairball and ARIN couldn't figure out how
to get a grip on it" then i think the rest of your conclusion falls apart:
that is, ARIN's standing to assert its regional authority over these
regional allocations remains intact.  this isn't like a right of way that
one can lose property rights for if one fails to post a sign and periodically
restrict access, or losing trademark by failing to protect it coherently.

> It seems to me that if we want to make the argument that another
> RIR is not being a good stweard by abandoning needs-based allocations
> and thus should not be rewarded that the same argument can be turned
                        ^^^^^^^^^^
> against us.  By not requiring good stewardship (in a modern definition)
> of legacy holders ARIN should not be rewarded.

since this was never about rewards, i can't follow this reasoning at all.
RFC 2050 is pretty clear on all this.  the ability for some RIRs to adopt
policies which are incompatible with RFC 2050 is now being tested, and i
expect that the test will succeed, i.e., that RFC 2050 can be thrown
overboard at will, without direct recourse by NRO or IANA or ICANN or other
RIRs.  if this occurs, then a policy of "automatic return to IANA" means
that once any RIR abandons RFC 2050 then all RIRs have effectively done so
as soon as the IANA pool is depleted.  i am not comfortable with this as
a natural progression of events, no matter what arguments about fairness
or what global accusations of hoarding are brought to bear.

furthermore, ARIN is a 501(C)(6) nonprofit tax exempt business league.  at
<http://www.irs.gov/charities/nonprofits/article/0,,id=96107,00.html> i
find this text:

	... generally ... an entire industry ... within a geographic area.

so at a structural level, this organization is supposed to put its region
first if there is ever a direct conflict between this region and other
regions.  this does NOT argue for an actual policy of hoarding -- because
if the internet can grow in our region but in no other region then our
entire industry within our geographical area will also suffer.  this DOES
argue for policies which may run the risk of being called hoarding by the
rest of the world, even if we know a more complete truth.

>...
> 004/8	Level 3 Communications, Inc.	1992-12		LEGACY
>
> From this perspective I see nothing to indicate that 4/8 is in the ARIN
> region.

i do.  we're carrying WHOIS for it.  and if Level(3) wants to change the
4.IN-ADDR.ARPA addresses, we're who they'll talk to to get that done.  and
their world headquarters is in our region.  however, this example is not a
good one for another reason: if a full /8 comes back to an RIR, it's then
sent back to IANA.  (ARIN has already done this at least once.)  but if you
were to pick a longer-prefixed example, even its IN-ADDR would be inside a
block that's delegated to ARIN (or some RIR), and so it would be an even
worse example.  ARIN is the only party with anything that could be called
standing for legacy addresses in our region.  and ARIN would not hoard, by
its own definitions or in a way that caused the industry's growth to be
limited by address shortages, even if those shortages weren't in our region,
since such shortages would affect industry growth even within our region.

in san antonio, jcurran described the return-to-IANA policy for recovered
space as a "land grab".  i am surprised that we're still discussing it, but
perhaps the sense of the room changed after i left for the airport.  and in
case anyone here wonders why i'm wading into an issue on the AC list rather
than just lurking, it's because of my intense interest in the fiduciary
impact of any policy work in this area.
-- 
Paul Vixie
Chairman
ARIN BoT