[arin-ppml] Sections 6.5.1.a and 6.5.1.b - More section 6 Potential simplifications from the NRPM Working Group

[Dale W. Carder]

Thus spake Brian Jones (bjones at vt.edu) on Tue, Dec 05, 2023 at 02:28:18PM -0500:
> 
> Section 6.5.1.a  “Terminology” explains that ISP and LIR terms are used interchangeably throughout the entire document. The NRPM working group in discussions with ARIN staff has concluded that the term LIR could be replaced everywhere in the NRPM with the term ISP. By my counts the term LIR appears 37 times in the NRPM currently, while ISP is referenced 62 times. The LIR term is utilized less nowadays than in times past and ISP is a more widely used and well understood term. The LIR term occurs more frequently in other RIRs and it is likely that if section 6 were written solely for ARIN the ISP term would have been used. So the question to the community is, would replacing the term LIR with ISP make the NRPM more consistent and readable? The NRPM working group would like to hear your feedback.

I think that would be a step in the wrong direction.  To me, the term
ISP seems to carry a strong commercial connotation that excludes the 
existence of LIR entities that include governments, academic
institutions, non-profits, large scale enterprises, or even cloud or 
content providers.  

Of course, I have some bias coming from a network that is very much not
an isp... ;-)

The term LIR is used at other RIR's as you mention, as well as in a
number of RFC's since the mid 90's.  Why should we diverge?

I think you could delete 6.5.1.a and clarify in section 2 that LIR and
ISP may be used interchangably in the document, but personally I would 
prefer use of the term ISP be cleaned up, not LIR.

> Part b
> Section 6.5.1.b defines the IPv6 nibble boundaries . The working group feels like this definition would be a better fit if moved to section 2 of the NRPM which is the Definitions section. Your thoughts about moving the IPv6 nibble boundaries definition from section 6.5.1.b to section 2 would be appreciated.

Sounds perfectly reasonable.

Dale