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

[John Santos]

I agree with Dale (I think). ISPs do a lot more than just register Internet 
addresses, but their interaction with ARIN and the NRPM is under their function 
as an Internet Registry (allocating and registering addresses for their 
customers), so they are a special case of LIR.  If the term LIR is used most 
commonly by other regions and their definition of LIR is similar to ARIN's, then 
I think "LIR" should be used in the NRPM, even if it requires more single-point 
changes.

If everyone agrees that the terms ISP and LIR, as used in the NRPM, are 
equivalent, then substituting one for the other is a purely editorial change, 
not a policy change.

If we want to make clear in the policy that ISPs and LIRs are the same, this
should be explicitly stated in the definitions section at the beginning.  Both 
acronyms should be defined, and the statement should be made their that their 
policy implications are identical and thereafter only one of the terms will be 
used in the rest of the NRPM.

If, some time in the future, we develop a policy that distinguishes LIRs from 
ISPs, a future policy revision could state that some particular aspects of the 
new policy apply only to LIRs and not ISPs or vice versa, although there appear 
to be no such policies at the current time.  Making the editorial change to use 
only the term ISP or LIR now would make any such future change much easier to 
understand and implement.


On 12/5/2023 5:10 PM, Dale W. Carder wrote:
> 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
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-- 
John Santos
Evans Griffiths & Hart, Inc.
781-861-0670 ext 539