[arin-ppml] Draft Policy 2010-10 (Global Proposal):GlobalPolicy for IPv4 Allocations by the IANA Post Exhaustion- Last Call (textrevised)

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

On 11/2/2010 9:36 PM, John Curran wrote:
> On Nov 2, 2010, at 11:30 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>> Right now, Legacy netblocks that are attached to POCs that ARIN
>> determines are non-respondent, can ultimately be freed up.  All
>> ARIN has to do is determine a POC is abandoned and when ALL POCs
>> that are on a particular Legacy block change to abandoned status,
>> then the resource is, (in my opinion) effectively freed, and (in my
>> opinion) ARIN should move it back into the free pool of assignable
>> IPv4
>>
>> I would hope that ARIN would just do this by themselves, but maybe
>> we need yet another policy to state the obvious.
>>
>> But that does not answer the Legacy space that is unused, yet
>> still has a respondent POC on it.  Or Legacy space that the master
>> block has an abandoned POC but has active POC's that are in SWIPS
>> that were filed on parts of it.
>
> Ted -
>
> I'd like to raise the abstraction layer just a bit, in order to show
> why the issue of Legacy space holders is not quite as obvious as one
> might hope...
>
> On one hand, it seems fairly clear: ARIN administers a database for
> the community accordingly to openly developed policies, and this
> database includes information about legacy address assignments which
> ARIN agreed to administer as the final successor registry after a
> long line of contractors managing this information per US Government
> cooperative agreements.  Before this time, legacy address space
> holders had nominal say in policies surrounding the direct management
> of the database, other than at global level through overall IETF
> guidance documents, such as RFC 2050.  The transition to a
> community-based organization provides a more direct route for
> participation in the governance and policy development, and everyone
> wins (run applause track here...)
>
> However, it is also the case that there is a significant base of
> legacy space holders who simply want to make use of the number
> resources, and have no particular interest in number resource policy,
> ARIN's governance structure, or fee schedules, etc.  These legacy
> holders have use of unique number resources, and simply wish that to
> continue unmolested.  When ARIN came into operation, things seemed
> just fine for those legacy organizations, and the fact that many of
> the ISPs at that time joined ARIN, paid fees, and participated in its
> formation does not mean that every legacy organization wanted to do
> the same.
>
> One can readily argue that services to legacy address space holders
> should be provided services without any change, in the same manner as
> they were at ARIN's inception, since that matches some expectations
> in the community.  One can also argue that legacy address space
> holders should all participate in ARIN, sign agreements like everyone
> else, pay reasonable fees to offset their operational costs, and
> conform to the policies that are adopted by the community.
>
> In the end, the active ARIN community needs to treat the legacy
> address space community with respect, and legacy address space
> holders need to also respect the more active ARIN community. The
> Legacy RSA and Specified Transfer policy are examples of where common
> ground was found, and we need more of that going forward rather than
> calls for "exertion of authority".  There is no doubt that ARIN will
> administer the Whois database accordingly to the community developed
> policy, but folks should keep in mind that there are tens of
> thousands of legacy address holders who may not be active in ARIN but
> still deserve to be treated fairly.
>

Ah, but they AREN'T currently being treated fairly, because the
world has consumed all IPv4 space and needs more of it - and as
a result the world is switching to IPv6 - thus destroying the
usefulness of their assignments.

So I don't see that the legacy holders are being treated fairly
even with the ARIN community bending over backwards to leave them
alone.  in short, the idea that the legacy holders are being treated
fairly is rapidly becoming a sham, if it isn't already.

Also introducing the LRSA
has started the process of dividing the legacy holders into 2 camps.
The first camp are the folks like your referring to who just want to
be left alone.  The second camp are the folks who have acknowledged
that what they are doing affects the rest of the world and are making
the minimal effort to be responsible to the community by signing the
LRSA, even if they otherwise completely ignore the community once
they sign the document.

Naturally when ARIN wants to bring the legacy holders from the first
camp into the second, a honeyed approach is the first approach to
try.  Your call for "common ground" is a facet of this approach.

But human nature has shown that whenever you try to get a group
of people, or organizations to become more responsible to the community,
that eventually the honeyed approach succumbs to the law of diminishing
returns.

If you say that ARIN is seeing a steady stream of legacy holders
still signing the LRSA then I can understand that you believe that
we have not reached the area of diminishing returns on the honeyed
approach, and that you would prefer that the community not get the
pichforks and torches out and "kill the ogre" just yet.

But eventually the honeyed approach is going to play out.  At that
time, further attempts with the honey do a disservice to the camp
who has signed the LRSA.

My personal take on this is that IPv4 has a LOT more life in it
than most people are comfortable contemplating.  Surely, the "new
Tech" networking like cellular is going to embrace IPv6 right away.
But, I think that for many years much of the land infrastructure
in the US particularly will continue to use IPv4.  If my gut feel
is right then there will be continued pressure to "mine" the unused
IPv4 resources, and the community will eventually intently focus
on the legacy holders - and at that time, the legacy holders who
have NOT signed an LRSA are going to find the community has no more
sympathy for the "common ground" approach and will be going after
them with the pitchforks and torches.  At that time, calls for
"exertion of authority" are going to seem quite tame.

Ted




> /John
>
> John Curran President and CEO ARIN
>
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