[arin-ppml] Internet 101: Collaboration (was - Microsoft receives court approval for transfer as agreed with ARIN)

[David Conrad]

John,

On Apr 29, 2011, at 3:22 PM, John Curran wrote:
> Someone can claim they've "sold" something to someone, but there's 
> no delivery until there's a valid transfer request to be processed 
> at ARIN.

So there is no registry but ARIN's registry.  An interesting point of view that I'm certain will be tested in the near future.  

> Remember: ARIN "gets in the way" because the community has directed us to implement these policies.  

For some definition of the term "the community".  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

>> 1) spend resources (time, money, people) on joining the ARIN debating and fine lunch and dinner club with uncertain prospects for positive outcomes
> 
> That's called participation in the policy development process, 
> and that is an essential principle of the system.

To me it clearly wasn't for Nortel/Microsoft but I understand you see things differently.

>> 2) spend resources (time, money, people) on suing ARIN with uncertain (but higher probability based on the two existing precedents) for positive outcomes
> 
> Actually, I'm quite certain of the results based on history. 
> Until there's a request that meets the community developed 
> policy, we do not change the registry.  Neither of the past
> cases resulted in an order to update the registry. 

True, there was no order to 'update the registry'.

In Kremens v. ARIN, statute of limitations expired, but as far as I'm aware the previous judgement that awarded Cohen's address space to Kremens wasn't vacated.  Maybe it was and I missed it or maybe Kremens decided to play along or maybe there is a bit of a divergence in how the US courts view the world and how ARIN's One True Registry views the world (in which case that address space is presumably lost to the sands of time).  I've no idea what the current state of affairs is.

In NNI/Microsoft, there was no order, but some rather some surprising/incorrect (according to many in "the community") interpretations of "the community"-derived policies was necessary in order for the registry to be updated.

I'm sure there will be more cases in the future, so we can just wait and see.

>> 3) find an alternative registry, pay the no-strings-attached fixed fee, and be done with it.
> Definitely doesn't result in a transfer, so I'm not sure what what you'd be paying for...

Ask Microsoft.  They paid $7.5 million dollars (or about 1/2 ARIN's entire 2010 budget IIUC) in a single transaction for _something_.

> The vast majority of legacy holders don't participate because they've never had any real reason to do so.  


True. Not sure that getting them to participate because they're pissed off is the best way, but we'll see.

> Many of those who
> become aware of ARIN have joined under the LRSA, and actually
> we're now seeing them doing transfers quite successfully.  

Then everything is working out fine and there's no need to change a thing. Good to know. As I'm not emotionally, financially, or otherwise invested in any particular outcome, I honestly don't mind being wrong.

> For those who are aware of ARIN, but don't want to participate 
> in policy development, I'd recommend monetization according to 
> existing community policy. For those that want different policies,
> then participation in the policy development process is obviously
> the next step.

Or, just wait a while longer, until the IPv4 free pool exhaustion really starts to bite.   Maybe by then the RIRs will have implemented RPKI and will be able to impose their policies on those who might disagree.  Or maybe, as you say, legacy holders will be happy to join "the community" and this discussion will be moot. Or maybe folks like depository.net/tradeipv4.com/etc. will have established a relationship with the major ISPs such that their registries are used just as ARIN's (and APNIC's and RIPE's and LACNIC's and AfriNIC's and JPNIC's and KRNIC's and ...) are.  Since this is clearly a non-terminal discussion and I for one honestly do not have time to engage further, I'll take the option I suggested. Sorry for the disruption.

Regards,
-drc