[arin-ppml] Needs assessment

[Eric Brunner-Williams]

On 6/5/13 9:33 AM, Chris Grundemann wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 10:57 AM, Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:
>> > While we are at it, we might want to clarify a few things about the general "needs assessment" debate:
> Saying the same thing over and over again in hopes that people will
> eventually believe it is not "clarification," IMHO.

+1

>> > * critiques of needs assessment in IPv4 are not directed at IPv6. The point, as RIPE's "No need" proposal and others have said, is that once the free pool is gone the rationale for conserving via administrative needs assessments is largely gone. The market price system can take over the task of conservation, as it does for most resources.
> The rationale for conservation via needs assessment is not tied to
> IANA or RIR free pool levels, it is tied the the scarcity of IPv4
> addresses (~4.2B total, regardless of free pool sizes).

The thing conserved is not the set of values in 32 unsigned bits, but
the allocations from the set of values in 32 unsigned bits, consumed
by the present, hierarchical routing system, which are capable of
being routed under ordinary implementations of a protocol on
commercially available general purpose routers.


>> > In short, the removal of needs assessments from transfers after a free pool is depleted is a minor but important adjustment that we make in the dying days of IPv4. Time to relax about it. Dispense with the religion, and  focus laser-like on what makes for the most efficient methods of moving IPv4 numbers to their most highly valued use, quickly and with minimal friction.

Define "highest value". Define "efficient".

Eric Brunner-Williams
Eugene, Oregon