[arin-ppml] Against 2013-4

[David Farmer]

On 6/3/13 18:37 , Mike Burns wrote:
> Hi David,
> All that is being demonstrated by your research below is that
> operational need was a principle of allocation of addresses *from the
> free pool*.
> And that makes perfect sense to everybody. You had to have some means to
> fairly distribute the addresses, and the lightest touch of the steward
> would be to just give them away for free to anyone. Of course that would
> allow anybody to claim all the addresses, so the lightest workable touch
> then became giving them away for free to anyone who needed them. And
> that's what we have done, and it has served us well.

You seem to think that IPv4 are the only resources we need to worry 
about, IPv6 and ASNs are necessary resources too, these principles also 
apply to them.  You seem to concede that an operational need principal 
is appropriate for IPv6 and ASNs as they have a free pool.  Do I read 
you correctly?

> With a transfer market, pricing enforces conservation with the lightest
> touch from ARIN stewards.
> The whole point here is that RFC2050 is outdated, right? I agree- it was
> the product of a mindset which did not conceive of a life after the free
> pool exhausts. There is no concept of a transfer market in RFC-2050, so
> why draw the inference that the principle of conservation of free pool
> addresses should be extended to transfers?

I personally agree that the current measure of operational need for IPv4 
as we must extend the life of IPv4 through transfers is obsolete. 
However, that doesn't mean I think the principle is obsolete, the 
principle remains necessary for IPv6, ASNs, and I contend IPv4 as well. 
  I contend it is only necessary for us to revise the measure of 
operational need for IPv4, not obsolete the principle all together.

> The purpose of a market is to allocate scarce resources.  It does this
> through pricing the resource. Now that we have this conservation force
> working for us, it is our responsibility as stewards to step back, pat
> ourselves on the back for a job well done with the free pool
> allocations, and concentrate our resources on our primary role as
> registrars.  This means we do not create or maintain policies that
> provide an incentive for transfers to occur which are not booked in
> Whois, such as need tests for transfers.

I agree we need a much lighter weight measure of operational need for 
IPv4, about now or very soon.  However, I also believe the principle of 
operational need MUST be maintained, without it we risk all sorts of 
issues for the long term viability of IPv6 and ASNs.  I don't believe a 
vibrant transfer market requires we obsolete the principle of 
operational need.  We only need to radically rethink our current measure 
of operational need for IPv4, which is compatible with a principle of 
operational need, and allows us to maintain a common principle for all 
resource types.


-- 
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David Farmer               Email: farmer at umn.edu
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University of Minnesota
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