[Iana-transition] What form of supervision is needed?

Fri Oct 17 14:43:01 EDT 2014

David,

Your assessment that ICANN is focused on names is totally fair and that
the work that ICANN currently does for the numbering community is very
small. 

If we postulate to move the current numbering IANA function to the NRO. 
Then I think we need to make changes to the NRO and those changes would
need to be part of the transition plan.  Questions like... Should the
NRO be incorporated?  If so where?  Does the NRO need a new board, which
is elected?  How is it elected?  How do we ensure that the NRO continues
in the public interest?  What is the future relationship between the
RIRs and the future NRO? 

Those are all questions that would need significant work and thought to
figure out and come up with a plan.  That certainly could be in the long
term benefit of the numbering community, but does it have the downside
of fracturing the Internet community?

The other alternative is the status quo or a variant thereof.  While the
status quo might be the path of least resistance it also has known
issues.  There doesn't seem to be a reason that we couldn't continue
with a variant of the status quo at least for a while and then sometime
in the future make changes.

Andrew

On 10/17/2014 11:08 AM, David Huberman wrote:
> Andrew,
>
> The problem, as I see it, is two-fold:
>
> 1) ICANN isn't focused on addressing.  I just attended their ICANN51 meeting in Los Angeles.  It was thousands of attendees, with barely any engineers present.  The meeting was almost 100% focused on the naming registry game and finding ways to have more meetings. Quite a surprising number of interactions I had this week involved me noting that I run the numbering shop at Microsoft, and the person I was talking to asking what numbering was.
>
> 2) IANA, the function that actually performs the work, is still mostly 1 person: Leo Vegoda.  The job remains primarily focused on:
> - keeping the files up-to-date on which RIR has which numbers
> - watching over the reverse DNS management scripts to ensure they're working
> - periodically giving out new number space ranges to an RIR
>
> This function, again performed primarily by one person, is overseen by an organization with a ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY NINE MILLION DOLLAR BUDGET for FY15.  Wow.  $159mm budget.  It's projecting to run a $18mm net surplus in FY15.   Here's the link to the budget for FY15 that is approved by the Board:  https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/adopted-opplan-budget-fy15-16sep14-en.pdf
>
> How much of this $159mm will be spent to support the ASO and the IANA function? 
>
> Proposed solution:
> A) The NRO should petition USGOV to take IANA's addressing function away from ICANN, and run it themselves using the monies already paid to ICANN from the RIR membership dollars.
> B) The .arpa TLD needs to move to the NRO.  Then one of the RIRs should step up and take responsibility for its administration.
> C) Any shortfall in operating expenses for either of the above can be covered by the reserve funds that numerous RIRs currently hold. That's a good use of surplus money.
>
> David R Huberman
> Microsoft Corporation
> Principal, Global IP Addressing
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: iana-transition-bounces at arin.net [mailto:iana-transition-bounces at arin.net] On Behalf Of Andrew Dul
> Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2014 3:25 PM
> To: iana-transition at arin.net
> Subject: Re: [Iana-transition] What form of supervision is needed?
>
> While $800k certainly isn't a small amount of money it, I'll postulate that it also isn't a huge amount. 
>
> ICANN does a lot of "stuff" a lot of which isn't related to numbers at all, but it does act as a lightening rod for lots of global issues.  Its possible that an independent NRO would also have to deal with some of those issues.  In that light perhaps we are getting the value out of our relationship with ICANN?  ICANN certainly isn't perfect, but the working relationship between the numbers community and ICANN, while odd, has been highly functional and focused on specific issues where global coordination is necessary.
>
> Andrew
>
> On 10/16/2014 11:35 AM, Richard Hill wrote:
>> Unless I am mistaken, the RIRs are paying something like US $ 800'000 
>> per year to ICANN.
>>
>> I imnagine that the NROs could provide the IANA function for 
>> considerably less than that.
>>
>> Best,
>> Richard
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: David Huberman [mailto:David.Huberman at microsoft.com]
>>> Sent: jeudi, 16. octobre 2014 19:36
>>> To: John Curran; rhill at hill-a.ch
>>> Cc: iana-transition at arin.net
>>> Subject: Re: [Iana-transition] What form of supervision is needed?
>>>
>>>
>>> Regardless of any work that would need to be done, I support the idea 
>>> of transitioning the traditional IANA addressing functions to the 
>>> NRO. The IANA was run for decades as one person. The NRO can hire Leo 
>>> Vegoda or someone else to perform that role. Funding can come 
>>> directly from the NRO participants with no fee increase
>>> - just drop the significant money being paid to ICANN today.
>>>
>>> Bottom line for me: ICANN is not the appropriate vehicle for the IANA 
>>> function. We engineers need to take back control of the engineering 
>>> functions of IANA, wresting it away from professional do-nothings and 
>>> lawyers (save our own lawyers, who of course, we love).
>>>
>>> David R Huberman
>>> Microsoft Corporation
>>> Principal, Global IP Addressing
>>>
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: iana-transition-bounces at arin.net 
>>> <iana-transition-bounces at arin.net> on behalf of John Curran 
>>> <jcurran at arin.net>
>>> Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2014 10:06:17 AM
>>> To: rhill at hill-a.ch
>>> Cc: iana-transition at arin.net
>>> Subject: Re: [Iana-transition] What form of supervision is needed?
>>>
>>> On Oct 16, 2014, at 9:30 AM, Richard Hill <rhill at hill-a.ch> wrote:
>>>
>>>> As far as I can tell, ICANN properly speaking does the
>>> following things with
>>>> respect to IP addresses:
>>>>
>>>> 1. Approves the creation of new RIRs 2. Ratifies the policies 
>>>> approved by the RIRs
>>>>
>>>> And, through the IANA function, it does the following:
>>>>
>>>> 3. Allocates top-level IP address blocks to the RIRs 4. Publishes 
>>>> those allocations on its web site
>>>>
>>>> One could envisage transferring all those functions to the NRO,
>>> which would
>>>> in effect mean that the RIRs would be supervising those
>>> functions.  Since
>>>> the RIRs are responsible to their members, that would mean that
>>> the members
>>>> of the RIRs would be supervising those functions.
>>> Richard -
>>>
>>> This is certainly possible, but it is worth noting that the NRO is a 
>>> rather lightweight coordination function among the RIRs, allowing the 
>>> RIRs to coordinate on matters such as "whether we'll have an joint 
>>> RIR trade show booth at a given international conference", "can we 
>>> work on one informational brochure on IPv4 runout/IPv6 rather than 
>>> having five", "can we have a single joint number resource statistics report", etc.
>>>
>>> In these cases, each RIR is fulfilling each existing mission and 
>>> operating plans, only coordinating with other RIRs to do so in a more 
>>> efficient and consistent manner.  Ultimately, each RIR acts under its 
>>> own authority on matters which are primarily outreach and operational in nature.
>>>
>>> Expanding the NRO to take on the functions listed could be done, but 
>>> would represent a fairly substantial change in the level of 
>>> responsibility, and may need to be accompanied by both organizational 
>>> changes (e.g. actually incorporating the NRO) and accountability 
>>> changes (e.g. more than simply to the RIR executive directors, as it 
>>> is at present.)
>>>
>>> If this approach were to be promoted, it would be good to have ample 
>>> discussion on this list first, including the aspects noted above.
>>>
>>> /John
>>>
>>> John Curran
>>> President and CEO
>>> ARIN
>>>
>>>
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>>> Iana-transition at arin.net
>>> http://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/iana-transition
>>>
>>>
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