[arin-ppml] Microsoft receives court approval for transfer as agreed with ARIN

[David Conrad]

Ted,

On Apr 28, 2011, at 9:06 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> This is the same argument that the "alternate root people" have used for the last decade to attempt to inject hundreds of additional TDL's into the DNS namespace and it has failed.

Not really.  A closer analogy in the DNS space would be if ICANN had been able to enforce its attempt to force ccTLDs into entering into contractual agreements prior to getting the root zone updated. In both the case with the ccTLD/ICANN and legacy holders/ARIN, allocations were made prior to the existence of the coordinative body and the coordinative body attempted to force their policies onto the resource holders.  Looking at how that turned out for the ccTLD/ICANN relationship might be instructive.

> The admins that run the Internet have collectively decided to accredit the WHOIS system run by the RIR's.

The "admins that run the Internet" are generally employees of corporations that have interest in using the Internet for connectivity services.  Those corporate interests, particularly at the "C" level, generally look towards pragmatic cost/benefit when making decisions.  Suppose ARIN strictly interpreted 8.3 (as several folks here, including yourself I gather, believe they should have) and refused to accept Microsoft's purchase of the NNI space and that Microsoft had deployed that address space for some new whizbang end user service.  Assuming folks do as you suggest, all of a sudden, the "admins that run the Internet" would be faced with their customers making service calls complaining that the Internet was broken.  Those customers are not going to be calling Microsoft.  Do you think those customers would care that Microsoft had gone outside ARIN policies to obtain the address space?  Do you think those customers would even know or care what ARIN is?

> As long as most of them continue to do this, the WHOIS system run by the RIR's will remain the authority on
> who is supposed to be using what IP addresses and people are just going to have to suck it up.

I agree.  The point is that ARIN, by insisting that legacy holders fall under a policy regime that forces legacy holders to give up what they perceive to be their rights (whether they really have those rights is irrelevant), is encouraging a situation where those legacy holders will _actively_ seek out alternative registries (which already exist).  The real issue is that I figure the folks who are going to be most interested in purchasing address space (most likely however they can get it) are exactly the same folks upon which you are depending to ensure that the RIR whois system remains the authority.

Regards,
-drc