[arin-ppml] Draft Policy ARIN-2013-4: RIR Principles - revised

[Eric Brunner-Williams]

On 7/9/13 1:04 PM, Scott Leibrand wrote:
> The question I would ask is: Who cares?

Hmm. A trick question. It may depend on what one thinks is at issue,
some addresses, or the continuous means to provide routable and unique
assignments from some addresses.

There are those who advance a view that allocations are private property.

There are those who advance a view that some allocations are private
property.

Both of these views are consistent with a kind of stewardship that
leaves the allocation fixed, immutable, and an asset class for which a
market can be made.

Not that it was any big thing, but having renumbered hq.af.mil some
time ago, I think this view is based upon a misunderstanding, the
government interest was in some purpose to which numbering, and
renumbering, was incidental. Restated, as an agency of government and
an allocatee, the interest of a building (Pentagon) tenant in its
cable plant and attached devices was not in a specific block of
addresses, or even a specific range of addresses, but in the access to
the allocation procedures of the Defense Communications Agency.

Not a specific slice of pie, just the ability to have a slice of pie.

Agencies of government grow, shrink, are absorbed, and are abolished.
The interest of government is in the use to which specific allocations
of endpoint identifiers, under specific constraints (means of routing,
uniqueness of assignment within some scope) are incidental.

The indifference of government to persistence of allocation is
difficult to reconcile with the private property claims of some
non-governmental entities accessing the allocation procedures of the
Defense Communications Agency and its successors in interest,
presently one or more RIRs.

>  I don't think governmental authority is relevant there at all.

Well, this probably depends on what one thinks the government interest
is. The CEO of another 501(c)(3) penned a response to an agency of
government's RFP concerning policy which "come[s] from the needs of
the Internet community, as expressed by those participating in the
policy development process." I thought he offered that the government
had little or no present interest and was not surprised by the
agency's response.

Eric