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

[Brian Jones]

Thank you for the input John. The NRPM working group will take this under advisement and I appreciate the perspective that maybe this is just an editorial change if consensus is reached about which term to use.


Brian Jones
ARIN Advisory Council (NRPM Working Group)



> On Dec 5, 2023, at 6:10 PM, John Santos <john at egh.com> wrote:
> 
> 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
>> _______________________________________________
>> ARIN-PPML
>> You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to
>> the ARIN Public Policy Mailing List (ARIN-PPML at arin.net).
>> Unsubscribe or manage your mailing list subscription at:
>> https://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-ppml
>> Please contact info at arin.net if you experience any issues.
> 
> --
> John Santos
> Evans Griffiths & Hart, Inc.
> 781-861-0670 ext 539
> _______________________________________________
> ARIN-PPML
> You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to
> the ARIN Public Policy Mailing List (ARIN-PPML at arin.net).
> Unsubscribe or manage your mailing list subscription at:
> https://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-ppml
> Please contact info at arin.net if you experience any issues.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-ppml/attachments/20231212/f3ac67f5/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 833 bytes
Desc: Message signed with OpenPGP
URL: <https://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-ppml/attachments/20231212/f3ac67f5/attachment.sig>