[arin-ppml] Policy Experience Report Working Group Leasing Question

[Michel Py]

Hi David,

> David Farmer wrote :
> Suggestions that ARIN should instead auction the waiting list resources, while seemingly logical, given
> the success of the transfer market, nevertheless seem incompatible with ARIN's not-for-profit status.

I have to disagree with that. I work for a Credit Union, that some people call a not-for-profit bank.
We do not have publicly traded shares, and obviously we do not pay dividends to shareholders. _That_ would be profit.
However, we do make money. Revenue, which is not the same thing as profit. If you were to have a loan to buy a car or a mortgage to acquire a house, not only you would have to pay it back, but you'd also have to pay us interest. We are a non-profit, not a charity, we do not give free money away and we even make money on financial markets. That is how we pay our bills and our employees. It's not greed, but we do have to make a buck like everyone else including ARIN.

There is nothing wrong for a non-profit to make money. ARIN does make money : we pay fees. How that money is used could (and should) indeed be questioned, if it was used to lower member fees or pay for expenses, I don't see any fundamental problem with ARIN charging $38 (or whatever the market is) per IP as a fee to transfer space that would become available or reclaimed.

Now, let's hypothesize that 240/4 becomes available for public routing unicast allocation and that ARIN gets a /6 out of it, 67 million IP at $38 a pop would be 2 billion and change, then that would be a different issue. If the waiting list was to disappear, it would be wise to have some language that Class E suddenly becoming available would not be auctioned out.
But given what I would call a trickle that the waiting list currently is, I don't see a problem.

Michel