[arin-ppml] An article of interest to the community....

[Owen DeLong]

On Sep 1, 2011, at 6:37 AM, Mike Burns wrote:

> Hi Seth,
>> 
>> The school I went to used public space everywhere, including the dorms.
>> Although it's only around 18k students and 1k staff.
> 
> Well that seems profligate to me, but given inertia and copious address space you may be right about what the average small college is doing.
> 

How can you claim that is profligate? If they made efficient use of the addresses
they have, then, the fact that they chose not to disable their network with NAT is
not profligate, it's simply good management.

Yes, it might be that if they were willing to accept the tradeoffs and disabilities
associated with implementing NAT, they could have used fewer addresses.
However, if Americans were willing to accept the tradeoffs and disabilities
associated with public transit instead of driving private automobiles, we'd
probably have less of an issue with global warming, foreign oil influence
on our economy, and a host of other problems.

The reality is that there are reasons we prefer our private automobiles and
there are reasons to prefer a NAT-free network.

Either one can be called profligate, but, neither is against the rules or really
something for which the "profligate" label is particularly legitimate IMHO.
Using such a label in such a circumstance implies a system where some
random third party gets to sit in judgment of the value or legitimacy of a
particular resource utilization. Under current policy, ARIN judges need as
being present or absent. It does not make relative value judgments about
different types of needs, nor should it.

>> 
>> 
>>> I think we could use more concrete protections from section 12 reviews
>>> of sellers than the bland assertions of the current leadership that such
>>> reviews will not happen. Lawyers for the sellers will want more than
>>> that, IMO.
>>> 
>> 
>> I don't think sellers deserve any special protections just because
>> they're sellers. Simply return it to the free pool if it's a concern.
>> Although at this point "for the good of the community" is dying in favor
>> of "for the good of profit".
>> 
>> ~Seth
>> 
> 
> If they act for the good of the community they act against the good of their shareholders.
> In that ethical battle I see pecuniary interests winning out.

First, this assumes that all resource holders also have shareholders (false).
Second, I don't think that you can make such an absolute statement. It may well be
that the shareholders have much more to gain from the public image and/or
other good will attained by "doing the right thing" than they could ever gain
from the monetization of the address space. As such, the true fiduciary
interest may run contrary to the immediate pecuniary interest.

I agree that in general, corporate governors do a poor job of recognizing such
a situation and tend, instead, to err on the side of monetization. This is an
example of how markets don't necessarily achieve the best outcome in all
situations.

> If we truly want unused addresses being put to use then we should change policy to protect RSA sellers from the threat of section 12 reviews when they seek to sell addresses.
> 

When STLS was being developed, the AC was very careful to specify that
merely listing resources for sale on STLS or through another medium was
not in itself to subject a resource holder to a section 12 review or any
procedure for revocation. Neither, however, was such listing intended to
provide a safe harbor against ARIN proceeding with any such action
based on other independent data or investigation.

In other words, while we don't want listing your addresses to flag you for
an audit, we also don't want to create a situation where merely listing
addresses gives you an exemption from policy.

Owen

> Regards,
> Mike
> 
> 
> 
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