[arin-ppml] clarification of Board actions Feb 2 and Mar 18, 2009

[William Herrin]

On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Lee Howard <spiffnolee at yahoo.com> wrote:
> At its February 6, 2009 meeting,  the Board accepted the recommendation of the
> Advisory Council, finding that the process had been followed, and adopted
> policy proposal 2008-6: Emergency Transfer Policy for IPv4 Addresses.

Hi Lee,

For reference, the 2/6/09 meeting minutes are at
https://www.arin.net/about_us/bot/bot2009_0206.html . Section 6
contains the part associated with proposal 2008-6. It's about a dozen
paragraphs long.


> Allowing for the possibility that demand might increase
> as IANA allocates its last IPv4 numbers, the Board believes that there is
> insufficient time for another full policy cycle.

I would ask the board to justify this claim. Policy 2008-6 was
introduced 8/26/2008 and the board had the opportunity to ratify it
2/6/2009, slightly less than 6 months later. Given that the best
available projections don't show the IANA free pool depleting inside
the next 24 months nor ARIN's free pool depleting within the next 36,
what is the *factual basis* for the conclusion that less than 6 months
may remain before the inability to sell IP addresses causes an
operational problem?


> The policy in 2008-6 allowed
> the Board to activate it by declaring an emergency,

Er, what?

I'm not aware of of any text in 2008-6 which required or even
recommended that the board declare an emergency in order to activate
it. My understanding of 2008-6 was that it was to be active upon
finding of consensus and ratification by the board. The word
"emergency" in the title was a no-op; it's presence in a proposal
title has no defined meaning within the published PDP. It only
reflected the author's view that creating a transfer policy was
important.

I supported 2008-6. I disapproved of the use of the word "emergency"
in the title and would have opposed the policy had I believed the word
to be anything more than a no-op. I doubt I'm the only one in this
position.


> The policy had certain gaps which, in the Board’s opinion, allowed for
> exploitation.

The meeting minutes offer no explanation or support for this finding
whatsoever. It seems inexplicable given that 2009-1 opens things
rather wider than 2008-6.


> As noted in the minutes of the February 6 meeting, the Board
> resolved to make certain edits to the policy that  had just been adopted.
> These edits were out of order:

And they still are. Absent a *properly documented* emergency, 2009-1
is out of order.

It ain't an emergency just 'cause you say so. How does the phrase go?
"A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should
declare the causes which impel them." Smart fellow, the guy who
figured out that one.

Regards,
Bill Herrin


-- 
William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
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