[arin-ppml] Draft Policy 2010-10 (Global Proposal):GlobalPolicyfor IPv4 Allocations by the IANA Post Exhaustion- LastCall (textrevised)

[George Bonser]

Owen said:

> IMHO, targeting legacy holders for non-compliance with today's
> ARIN policies is dubious at best. I agree we should seek to actively
> reclaim abandoned resources (resources where the ORG no
> longer exists). I think we should possibly reach out and request that
> ORGs no longer using their legacy resources voluntarily return
> them.
> 
> Legacy holders received their resources under very different
> requirements with very different expectations. While ARIN is the
> successor registry of record, legacy holders (other than LRSA
> signatories) have no agreement with ARIN and never agreed
> to be bound by the ARIN policy process. I think attempting to
> take such resources is an almost certain path to very costly
> litigation with a very uncertain outcome. There are better things
> for ARIN to do with their legal budget, IMHO.

In the case where the original legacy holder is still the owner of that
space, I would agree.  If the space involved has been "sold" or
otherwise transferred to someone else since ARIN came about, I would
argue that the only expectation the current holder has is being out of
reach of ARIN policy just because the space was originally issued to
someone else under a different policy.

I would support the original entity's right to use (or not use) those
addresses for whatever purpose they wanted.  The problem comes in with
legacy space that is no longer under the control of the original holder
of it.  It would seem to me that once those resources leave the control
of the original holder, that policy expectation should no longer apply.



> What we don't have is any form of agreement by the legacy holders
> that the ARIN definition of justified applies to them. Non-signatories
> to the LRSA are, thus, in an uncertain area. Signatories of the LRSA
> are clearly protected from current and future ARIN policies in this
> regard.

But what about people who aren't the original legacy holder that have
obtained those resources since ARIN has come about?  Why are they exempt
from current policy?  Why does holding certain IP address space place
you into a "wayback" machine to decades ago in policy?

> I agree that ARIN has a moral obligation to legacy holders.

Agreed.

> I am uncertain about what legal obligations ARIN has to legacy
holders.

What about non-legacy holders of legacy space?

 
> I think that involuntary reclamation of legacy resources or
> "termination of
> services" to legacy holders is contrary to ARIN's best interests. I
> think that
> going beyond "termination of services" to the step of placing
resources
> back into the free pool and issuing them to other organizations would
> be outright counter-productive for all concerned (except in the case
of
> clear abandonment).

It should have been the policy of ARIN that resources transferred out of
the control of the original holder of them revert to community control
via ARIN.  That horse left the barn long ago but it might not be too
late to implement such a policy.  Legacy space no longer under the
control of the original holder would immediately come under the same
policy as any other space and would require the same transfer
requirements as any other space from now going forward.  In other words,
the current holder would be ok to use them but if they wish to transfer
that space or if they go defunct, it comes under the current ARIN
policy.

While there is a strong argument that as the original holder of the
space did not have any transfer restrictions and so it was fine for them
to transfer the space to someone else, continuing that practice today
for entities that might be several times removed from that legacy holder
seems odd.  The only thing connecting a current recipient of that space
with the legacy agreement is the numbers in the block itself.  I say
that numbers cannot be held to this or that agreement and have no
expectations, they are just numbers.  People and entities of people can
have expectations but once that legacy holder no longer owns those
resources, the only expectation a current owner has is "I can do
whatever I want with these because these numbers are above the rules".
I don't think that expectation is healthy for the community.