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

[Owen DeLong]

Sent from my iPad

On Jul 18, 2013, at 1:23 AM, Steven Ryerse <SRyerse at eclipse-networks.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Owen DeLong [mailto:owen at delong.com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2013 8:50 PM
> To: Steven Ryerse
> Cc: arin-ppml at arin.net
> Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] Draft Policy ARIN-2013-4: RIR Principles - revised
> 
> 
> On Jul 17, 2013, at 5:30 PM, Steven Ryerse <SRyerse at eclipse-networks.com> wrote:
> 
>> Correct, the Missions Statement isn't policy but policies all need to flow from and be in alignment with the Mission Statement.  It exists to help guide ARIN and this community in day to day matters.  I don't know who wrote the original Mission Statement - maybe IANA and NSF and others were involved - I don't know for sure.
> 
>>> You made the statement that the BoT changing the mission statement without community input was not in line with the claim that policies are developed by the community. I was pointing out the fallacy in that argument by pointing out that the mission statement was not policy. Policies are developed by the community. Other things about ARIN are not. At least not directly.
> 
> I would say that if something big is contemplated such as a Mission Change, which is what I believe this new Mission Statement is, why would ARIN not automatically solicit input on a proposed Mission Statement change from this community?  John has said many times including under oath that ARIN implements policies that this community wants. If ARIN changes the Mission Statement without soliciting input from this community on the proposed changes, then in my opinion ARIN is not honoring the spirit of their long standing commitment to include this community in policy decisions - since all policies should flow from and be aligned with the Mission Statement.  

As I said, I do not think that anyone involved in the change thought it was a change in mission at the time. The feeling was that it was an update to the text in order to make it more accurately reflect the actual mission.

Whether they were correct in that belief or not (I believe they were, but obviously you feel differently), I think it was done in good faith believing that it was a text cleanup and not an actual change to the mission.

Indeed, if you look at the dates on NRPM section 8, it is clear that ARIN has been doing more than allocating resources and has been, in fact, more accurately managing them rather than merely allocating them for many years. As such, I would argue that managing was always their mission and that allocate was, at one time, the majority of managing to a sufficient extent that nobody recognized the distinction at the time of writing the original mission statement.

I challenge you to point to a time in history when ARIN's exclusive mission was actually allocation in terms of their policies and/or their actual practices. I do not believe such a time exists.

I think that John has already stated that the board will exercise greater care in the future when updating the mission statement. Given that this is the first update in 12 years to the best of my recollection, I doubt that the issue is all that likely to come up again soon anyway.

If you feel that there are other ways in which the new mission statement represents a change in mission, please elaborate. Otherwise, I think this discussion has run its course and we can agree to disagree about whether the changes to the mission statement were a change in mission or whether they were a textual update to more accurately reflect the long standing and existing mission.

>> In my opinion these are very different.  The first says ARIN is to allocate, and the second says ARIN only has to manage - and thus doesn't necessarily have to allocate.  
> 
>>> At the time ARIN was created, managing internet resources consisted almost exclusively of the process of allocating resources from greenfield space. Things have changed since then. We now have transfers of IPv4 resources and ASNs, reclaimed and returned resources (to a much greater degree than when ARIN was created), inter-regional transactions, etc. As such, I think that the term manage has become more consistent with ARIN's current mission whereas allocate describes only a subset.
> 
> I disagree and maybe we agree that we disagree here, but this is at the heart of what I think has been wrong with policy making.  Assuming by greenfield space you mean that there were plenty of IPv4 addresses available then, I don't see any reason why the depletion of IPv4 should change ARIN's Mission or change ARIN's primary mission to Allocate.  I know others might disagree but I strongly believe this.  Certainly the stewardship portion of the previous Mission Statement should be applied - and that stewardship function should make sure allocations were/are not made willy nilly, but I believe the stewardship responsibility wasn't meant to be used to NOT allocate ; or maybe somehow make sure that an allocation is used up in a certain amount of time or whatever.  This is why I have recently proposed to right size allocations (and remove needs based tests) and then get the allocations out there to orgs that will use them - which by the way fulfills the "advancement of the Internet" portion of the previous Mission Statement.  

Do you feel that ARIN should not process transfers of number resources?
Do you feel that ARIN should not perform RPKI resource verification?
Do you feel that ARIN should not maintain the whois database and process updates?
Do you feel that ARIN should not accept returned resources from people who no longer need them?

Do you feel that any of the above items are new parts of ARIN's mission?
Arguably, RPKI, since it is new is a new part, but otherwise, I believe ARIN has performed each and every one of these non-allocation management functions since its inception.

If you truly feel that ARIN should not perform those functions, then we are very far apart and should agree to disagree. If you feel that ARIN should perform those functions, then I submit that ARIN is, in fact, supposed to manage the address space (that's management, afterall) and not merely allocate it.

> 
>> I have no way of knowing but I wonder if IANA is OK with a change like this.  Would they need to approve of a significant Mission Statement change for an RIR?  I don't know how that all works.  
> 
>>> Well, per the MoU, IANA policies (with respect to number resources) are governed by policies which achieve consensus through the independent policy development process in all 5 RIRs and are then ratified by the NRO NC and subsequently ratified by the ICANN Board. As such, I can't see how IANA could object to a change like this since IANA has no role in defining the policies of the RIRs, but, rather operates in the other direction… The collective RIRs through the NRO manage the IANA policies.
> 
>> I have many times pointed out in this community that a particular policy or policy proposal does/did not match the Missions Statement.  I guess instead of working with this community to align policies with the Mission Statement, ARIN decided to make the Missions Statement fit the policies.  
> 
>>> I think, rather, that the original mission statement was an artifact of the time when it was created and we live in a different time now. I do not believe that the change in the mission statement represents a change in mission or an adaptation of the mission statement to fit the policies nearly so much as it represents a change in wording to recognize the larger nature of the mission than was evident at the time of ARIN creation.
> 
> I think the previous Mission Statement is elegant and was constructed very well.  Reading it now I think it still does an excellent job of describing ARIN's mission today.  A simple change to it to add that the scope that ARIN is now focused on Internet resources in this geographical region is all it needs to be current.  Maybe we agree to disagree here too, but I think the new Mission Statement does change the mission. WORDS ARE A POWERFUL THING.

I utterly disagree. First, the original mission statement claims that ARIN sets the policies. It does not reflect that the community drives the policy process. In fact, that issue was the main reason motivating the board to correct it. I do think that the loss of the words "Applying the principles of stewardship" was unfortunate, but not all that significant. Otherwise, I feel that the current mission statement is a vast improvement over the previous one and does  a much better job of accurately reflecting ARIN's mission as it has always been.

> 
>>> If ARIN's sole responsibility is to allocate, then who should process reclamations, returns, transfers, and other aspects of management of the address space? How do you see such a structure working?
> 
> I only mentioned previously what I think is the most important change, and that is the allocation verbiage has been removed.  I think the word "protocol" could be removed from the previous Mission Statement and it would include all that you list below. I think all portions of the previous Mission Statement are important and should be retained.

If you allocate and do not manage, then you can't do anything but one-way hand-it-out. You can't process updates to whois. You can't process transfers. You can't accept returns or make reclamations, etc. All of those are functions of management that are not allocation.

>> As I said ARIN does have the right to change it without this 
>> community's input but it sure leaves a bad taste in my mouth for ARIN 
>> not to have sought this community's input on something as significant 
>> as a Mission Statement rewrite.  In my humble opinion it feels like 
>> they went behind my (our?) back and deprived this community of the 
>> much needed opportunity to truly debate and have input to what we want 
>> the overall mission of ARIN to be.  Just my two cents. :-(
> 
>>> It left a bad taste in my mouth as well. I informed several board members of that fact at the time.
> 
>>> I don't think that it was their intent to go behind anyone's back. Indeed, I think it was out-of-control group-think on the word smithing when they set out to clarify that the policies are, in fact, set by the community. Having talked to most of the people responsible for the change, I don't believe that any of them felt that the change was meaningful beyond the clarification intended.
> 
>>> I was actually more upset about the loss of the "principles of stewardship" at the time. I still don't see the change from allocate to manage as being a material change to the mission statement (or to the mission) so much as a recognition of the current reality.
> 
> I think the second most important change to the Mission Statement is the removal of the word "stewardship" so I agree with you on that completely!  There has been comments in this community about stewardship in a current policy proposal in the last week - but with that word specifically removed from the new Mission Statement - maybe we should no longer be discussing that.  (I think we should be discussing stewardship by the way but now our mission is different here.)  

In discussing it with the board, the members I talked to actually said that the removal of the word was not particularly deliberate, just an oversight in the word smithing process. As such, I think that continuing to discuss stewardship is perfectly appropriate.

> It's not too late for ARIN to submit the current Mission Statement to this community for input.  Counting you Owen, there are at least two of us in this community that would have liked to have some input.  Are you listening John?

Perhaps. As I said, it annoyed me at the time, but I don't find sufficient fault with the current mission statement to feel that it is worth all that much effort. If you do, there is always the ACSP where you can formally suggest that such a review by the community be opened.

Owen