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

[Steven Ryerse]

John Curran said below:  You believe that the update was a major change to the mission, but in truth it was simply an attempt to more accurately reflect the current mission.

So John, when did this community have a chance to discuss and have input to IF the Mission should change? (And I'm not talking about technical issues and changes.)  

Section 5 of the ARIN Policy Development Process says in part:   "1) in compliance with law and ARIN's mission, and 2) developed via open and transparent processes".  This document of course concerns Internet Number Resources and it does state that policies must be in compliance with ARIN's mission and be developed openly.  This document obviously does not cover making changes to the Mission Statement but since policies must comply with ARINs mission, I think it makes sense to be open and transparent with this Community by soliciting input when making changes to the Mission Statement.  After all this is the Community ARIN was created to serve.  

The suggestion link below for changes to the Mission Statement is good but putting out an actual change the board is considering for input would be much better.  

Steven L Ryerse
President
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-----Original Message-----
From: John Curran [mailto:jcurran at arin.net] 
Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2013 8:58 AM
To: Steven Ryerse
Cc: arin-ppml at arin.net List
Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] Draft Policy ARIN-2013-4: RIR Principles - revised

On Jul 18, 2013, at 12:23 AM, Steven Ryerse <SRyerse at eclipse-networks.com> wrote:

> 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?  

You believe that the update was a major change to the mission, but in truth it was simply an attempt to more accurately reflect the current mission.

> 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.  

We likely have a fundamental disagree on that point, in that the mission statement states what ARIN does, whereas number resource policy defines the rules for "how" we do it.  The update to the mission statement was actually trying to make this very point more clear, i.e. ARIN (the organization) facilitates development of the policy _by the community_.

> 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.

ARIN's mission, from day one has included both management and allocation of number resources - refer the NSF's press release re ARIN's formation which states as much <http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=102819>

> 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.

We do indeed disagree.  Actual community-developed policy for number resource management with should not be pre-empted by"implied" number resource policy that you perceive to be in the mission statement...

Note that there are actual Principles of Internet Number Resource Policy" that are beyond the communities ability to directly change - these are actually in the Policy Development Process, Part 1, Section 4 - <https://www.arin.net/policy/pdp.html>

"
4. Principles of Internet Number Resource Policy

Internet number resource policy must satisfy three important principles, specifically:  1) enabling fair and impartial number resource administration, 2) technically sound (providing for uniqueness and usability of number resources), and 3) supported by the community.

4.1. Enabling Fair and Impartial Number Resource Administration

Internet number resources must be managed with appropriate stewardship and care. 
...
"

These principles have been affirmed by the ARIN Board of Trustees (after a 
multiple year update process, including several rounds of community comment)
as being an inherent part of Policy Development Process.  The ARIN AC is 
responsible for assessing proposed changes to policy against these principles.

> 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.)  

While the concept of stewardship is well-understood (i.e. the careful management of 
a resource on behalf of another), the determination of what exactly constitutes good
stewardship of number resources is best left to community-developed policy.  Whether
the phrase is included in the mission statement (or not) does not clarify whether a 
particular proposed policy change is good stewardship, that ultimately is for the 
community to decide.   If you believe that a proposed policy change would be contrary
to good stewardship, please point that out on this mailing list for the AC to include
in their assessment.

> 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?

"Are you listening John?"

Always.  

Please submit any suggestions for improvement to the Mission Statement to the ARIN 
Consultation and Suggestion Process <https://www.arin.net/participate/acsp/>

These will be periodically reviewed by ARIN staff, and brought to the ARIN Board for 
consideration for update to the mission statement (something we should not be doing 
very often.)  Note that we presently have one suggestion already for changing the 
mission statement <https://www.arin.net/participate/acsp/suggestions/2013-6.html>
Comments from the community on suggestions may be submitted on the arin-consult
mailing list, which is open to the public.

Thanks!
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN