[arin-ppml] ARIN-2012-3: ASN Transfers - Last Call

[Larry Ash]

On Tue, 08 May 2012 08:27:25 -0500
  David Farmer <farmer at umn.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> On 5/7/12 20:25 CDT, William Herrin wrote:
>> On 5/7/12, Owen DeLong<owen at delong.com>  wrote:
>>> On May 7, 2012, at 2:29 PM, William Herrin wrote:
>>>> If you want the community to own the policies then a non-trivial
>>>> amount of dissent means you keep discussing it. That's the nature of
>>>> consensus and if you want the disparate members of the community to
>>>> engage as ARIN's partners in address management, that's what it takes.
>>>
>>> While having true consensus would be ideal, it's not always feasible.
>>> In some cases, the AC has to weigh whether failing to move a proposal
>>> with significant support forward would do a greater harm than continuing
>>> to discuss it.
>>
>> Hi Owen,
>>
>> Would failing to move an AS transfer proposal forward this cycle do
>> harm? We've survived without one for 15 years and we're not sort of AS
>> numbers, at least not the 32 bit variety.
> 
> Bill,
> 
> You and others have mostly convinced me that we should hold off and bring 
>this one back to the next policy meeting.  However, I have a fear that we are 
>going to be right back where we are today in 5 to 6 months after the Dallas 
>PPM.  I really don't want to repeat what happened with IPv4 transfers, were 
>the more we discussed this issue the more the community polarized and 
>fractured.
> 
> How does the community come to a stronger consensus one way or the other? 
> There are really only a few minor tweaks that have been proposed to the text 
>and no one has said that those change would fundamentally change their 
>support one way or the other.  So, I don't think here are changes to the text 
>that will significantly change the consensus.
> 
The problem, as I see it, is that their seems to be two fundamental 
approaches. The "Why's"
and the "Why not's".

The "why's" want some concrete reason why this is necessary. An ASN is a value 
in a
router that isn't public facing. The main reason to transfer an ASN would be 
to preserve
existing customer configurations downstream from an organization. The unknown 
risk
of making a "market" for ASN's seem unnecessary. The "why's" demand a reason 
why this
risk is necessary.

The "why not's" seem to view this as a market opportunity so they they can 
participate
in the market either buying, selling, or brokering in ASN's or more 
fundamentally why not.
Whatever the overriding purpose they see no obvious reason to oppose this so 
they require
the "why's" to give them a reason why not.

At this point neither side has been able to explain either why or why not.

This seems more fundamental than the discussion at hand and probably all we 
can hope for
is that each side with try and understand the other. Maybe with that 
understanding a
consensuses can be reached.

> This is a major change and I think most everyone agrees that it is, this is 
>why I believe it is OK to take a little more time. You are right, there 
>should be no rush to make this change.  However, how does the community use 
>the extra time you are advocating for in a constructive manner?  How does the 
>community develop a stronger consensus one way or the other?  Is more time 
>going to accomplish that?
> 
> If my fears are correct and we don't succeed in producing a stronger 
>consensus either way, would you advocate a third policy cycle?  Is the 
>dissent strong enough and significant enough to block this proposal, even 
>though it seems that a strong majority supports the proposal?
> 
> John is right consensus isn't unanimity; I've been doing some reading on 
>consensus based decision making, paradoxically, dissent is part of a healthy 
>consensus.
> The lack of dissent can be "evidence of intimidation, lack of imagination, 
>lack of courage, failure to include all voices, or deliberate exclusion of 
>the contrary views," rather than actual consensus.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making
> 
> -- 
> ===============================================
> David Farmer               Email:farmer at umn.edu
> Networking & Telecommunication Services
> Office of Information Technology
> University of Minnesota	
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Larry Ash
Network Administrator
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123 W 1st St.
Casper, WY 82601
Office 307 233-8387