[arin-ppml] Use of "reserved" address space.

[David Farmer]

Joe Maimon wrote:
> 
> 
> Leo Bicknell wrote:
>>
>> A year or two ago there was some discussion about "reserved" address
>> space.  Specifically, Class E space, but in a CIDR world one has
>> to wonder why we can't use most of 0/8, 127/8, and 240/4 as regular
>> unicast space.  There were folks who were going off to discuss that
>> at the IETF and with some vendors.
> 
> There are/were some Internet Drafts concerning some useful applications 
> of this space.

I wouldn't be opposed to this direction, especially the class E space, 
I'm a little skeptical of trying to do something with 0/8 and 127/8 
personally.

However, I don't believe this is really something that can be 
accomplished within the PDP, this needs a directive from IETF to IANA. 
Nor, do I believe that any ARIN policy is necessary for ARIN to assign 
class E space if IANA were to make it available to ARIN and the other 
RIRs.  With policy as-is, if IANA made the space available ARIN would 
make these addresses available to the ARIN region.

>> That's potentially ~18 /8's worth of address space "left on the
>> table".  Early review suggested that most of this in several free
>> operating systems could be enabled with simple "user interface"
>> changes; that is there were some checks to make sure they weren't
>> used improperly by tools that set addresses but if those were removed
>> they would be forwarded and treated like unicast.  That is the cost
>> of implementation was low.
>>
>> I realize "everything in the middle" must be upgraded to support this,
>> but considering the level of effort and cost that may go into transfers
>> folks may in fact find using this space cheaper.  I'm surprised there
>> isn't more effort to look into this area.  Is there something going on
>> I'm just not seeing?
>>
> 
> I hope so, you and me both.
> 
> Apparently all attempts at something logical for this space are met with 
> "Its too late to do any good", which is a self fulfilling prophecy.
> 
> Joe

I guess my question to Leo and Joe is, what do you suggest should be 
done within the scope of the PDP or ARIN to make these addresses available?

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