[arin-ppml] [Ext] Re: Draft Policy ARIN-2019-10: Inter-RIR M&A - Seeking Community Comments

[Leo Vegoda]

On 7/15/19, 12:40 PM, "ARIN-PPML on behalf of Owen DeLong" <arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net on behalf of owen at delong.com> wrote:
> Yes… It would be nice if RIPE would move to a system similar to the other RIRs where there
>    is a single comprehensive policy document which is amended through the PDP rather than
>    their current RFC (usually without the back references and without the advantages of a
>    responsible RFC editor curating the “obsoletes” and “obsoleted by” references) process.

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here, Owen. Yes, the overall policy is broken out into thematic documents but unless I am very much mistaken, they are updated through a clearly documented process and the history of documents is meticulously tracked. For instance, the PDP was first documented in ripe-350 (https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-350) and that page clearly indicates the document that obsoleted it and the overall history of updates. The most recent version of the document (https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-710) has a reciprocal history on its page.

There is also an archive of all policy proposals: https://www.ripe.net/participate/policies/archived-policy-proposals/archive-policy-proposals

Whether there should be a single manual or thematically distinct documents is, frankly, a matter of taste. What is clearly important is the transparency and documentation of the overall process. If you are aware of gaps or errors in the published history, you should let the RIPE NCC staff know as I expect they'd be keen to address them. 

Kind regards,

Leo Vegoda