[arin-ppml] Discussion Petition of ARIN-prop-125 Efficient Utilization of IPv4 Requires Dual-Stack

[Matthew Kaufman]

On 12/29/2010 9:15 AM, Chris Grundemann wrote:
>
> We have tried to answer many of these questions with prop-125:
> We as a community and ARIN as an organization have been beating the
> IPv6 drum for years, why not reward the folks who answered our call
> and actually deployed IPv6?
That's a great idea, but a "reward" might be something like "reduced 
IPv4 fees" and not "you can get addresses at all".
> Why not ensure that the remaining IPv4 addresses are used to build
> truly sustainable infrastructure?
It might be reasonable to reserve some of the remaining IPv4 addresses 
for this, but it isn't reasonable to prevent transfers that fulfill 
other needs and it might not be reasonable to reserve *all* of the 
remaining IPv4 addresses for this either.
> Why allow scarce and valuable IPv4 addresses to be wasted on legacy
> equipment, in legacy networks?
Because when you say "wasted" you're making a very strong value judgment 
that isn't supported.

Is it more valuable for your ISP to be able to add more SSL-protected 
porn sites than it is for my ISP to be able to add more river flood 
stage monitors for the local government? We don't know... and so we 
don't know that serving a small addition to a legacy equipment network 
that won't do IPv6 is "wasted" or not.

Is my previous example of providing access to legacy computer hardware 
and operating systems for research a "waste" as well? We don't know that 
either.

So we shouldn't presuppose it is.
>
> When looking at the big picture it becomes clear that at this stage,
> IPv4 addresses that are not deployed alongside of IPv6 are being
> wasted.
No it isn't at all clear. *Some* IPv4 addresses that are not being 
deployed alongside of IPv6 are happening because people don't want to 
make the effort to switch their services to being able to serve the 
growing IPv6 Internet... and some IPv4 addresses that are not being 
deployed alongside of IPv6 are happening for *very good reasons*. And 
those will continue long past the point where ARIN runs out.

Should we reserve some addresses for infrastructure needed to support 
the transition? Probably, and I believe that's already been done.

Should we change policies right at the end in order to reserve a whole 
lot more addresses for transition? Probably not.

Should we make it impossible for people who need IPv4 and only IPv4 for 
very good reasons to obtain those via a transfer mechanism? Definitely not.


> PS - There has been another argument, that not everyone
> will/should/can dual stack and that someone who deploys a parallel
> IPv6 network should not be left out of the rewards of deploying
> production IPv6. I completely agree. I am more than willing to help
> revise the text of this proposal to include that scenario once the
> petition succeeds, if not sooner. I think that these mechanical
> details will all be fairly trivial to work out once the petition
> succeeds.
This is a ridicuous requirement that again presupposes "what public IP 
addresses are for". Should my local flood control district be required 
to set up a big IPv6 network that they don't use just to impress you 
with their knowledge of IPv6? Perhaps we should just limit future IPv4 
assignments and transfers to people who've got their "Commercial IPv6 
Drivers License".

Matthew Kaufman