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On 07/14/2015 06:18 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:3FA9389D-46DB-48AF-8E0F-6C99A737C7CE@delong.com"
type="cite">
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<div>On Jul 14, 2015, at 13:00, Adam Thompson <<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:athompso@athompso.net">athompso@athompso.net</a>>
wrote:<br>
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<div>[...] but although there's a good technical and contractual
justification for giving those entities their own distinct
subnets, they have nothing more than a contractual
relationship with me. Yet I'm still not an ISP as far as I'm
concerned.<br>
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By policy definition, you are, actually.
<div>Owen</div>
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<br>
Yes... in the same way that crossing the street in the middle of the
block at lunch yesterday, and speeding slightly on the way to work
this morning, made me a criminal. Yet, strangely, I don't think of
myself as a criminal.<br>
<br>
One of the things every so-called 'leadership' school teaches is
"Never give an order you know will not be obeyed".<br>
<br>
While it's origins appear to be military, a corollary has been
stated[1]:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">“Never pass a law that huge numbers of
people will break”. Passing such laws does little or nothing to
change human behavior, but does a great deal to undermine the rule
of law.</blockquote>
Policymakers are subject to the same forces - if a policy is ignored
or deliberately violated by a sufficiently large group of affected
entities, it ceases to be usefully enforceable. "Sufficiently
large" is directly relevant to both the enforcement resources
available and human group dynamics.<br>
<br>
As I stated in a previous email, I am personally aware of dozens of
"enterprises" who have partially-ceded control of their IP address
assignment to 3rd-parties for entirely valid, normal, non-ISP-like
reasons. Off the top of my head, extranets, HVAC systems, and
security systems all come to mind. (For clarity, yes, I'm still
talking about the public portable address space.)<br>
IMHO, it doesn't make sense to suddenly call them ISPs unless
renting IP address space is a noticeable part of their business, or
perhaps if a substantial part of their allocation is partially under
someone else's control.<br>
<br>
If you think it does make sense to call them an ISP, then I think
that's a signal that it's high time to discard the distinction
between ISP and Enterprise, and move to a fee-for-service model
instead.<br>
<br>
My understanding - and this could easily be wrong - is that the
distinction originally came into being because of the different
amounts of effort required on ARIN's part to service the customer;
an ISP was expected to cause significantly more work over a year
than an enterprise.<br>
<br>
I get that as an enterprise, paying the lower fee structure, I
shouldn't have access to all the "features" an ISP - paying the
higher fees - does. That's fairly straightforward. But on the flip
side, some ISPs are SWIPing and requesting new allocations all day
long, but some only do it once a year. Lumping them together isn't
fair, either... if an ISP never delegated address blocks and had
relatively static requirements, why on earth would they self-declare
as an ISP? I'm not *saying* I know anyone who's doing that, but...<br>
<br>
(I also favour a so-called "flat tax", could you tell? <grin>)<br>
<br>
Reducing the distinctions between ISP and Enterprise makes sense to
me.<br>
Unfortunately, I don't think the financial discussion can possibly
happen only *after* the theoretical discussion, as originally
postulated.<br>
This is an area where IMO the usually-clear(ish) distinction between
Community, AC, Board and Staff won't entirely work.<br>
<br>
-Adam<br>
<br>
<br>
<small>[1] I've heard it before, but the only reference I could find
to it today was <a
href="http://www.twopotscreamer.com/never-give-an-order-that-you-know-will-not-be-obeyed/">http://www.twopotscreamer.com/never-give-an-order-that-you-know-will-not-be-obeyed/</a>.
FWIW, Gen. D. MacArthur also said "Never give an order you know
can't be obeyed", which isn't quite the same thing.</small><br>
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