Bylaws for ARIN

[Philip J. Nesser II]

Dave McClure supposedly said:
Michael, first of all thanks for your thoughtful response to our concerns.
>Let's begin with the questions of stewardship.  I would submit that
>stewardship for the IP address space allocation in the Western hemisphere
>should rest with the users of that space, following the APNIC and RIPE
>models, and that ARIN should be a coordinating agency between those
>entities.  The issue is one of control, and of trust.  I'll come back to
>the trust issue.


I believe it is clear that ARIN is designed in the same vein as RIPE and
APNIC, but is born of different circumstances and thus has a slightly
different set of startup criteria.  Since it will be run be its members who
will be the users of the IP space I see no conflict with your statement and
ARIN's goals.

>I agree that universities and research institutes should have a voice in
>ARIN, as should all users of the system.  I understand that InterNIC issued
>about 300 allocations last year -- were 2/3 of them to universities and
>research institutes, as is reflected in the current ARIN Board?

An unfair question.  Since most of the development of the Net was done at
Universities and Research Institutes many have had their addresses for
years and years.  It should be clear to anyone that the greatest number of
registrations would have been to ISP for commercial allocations.   My math
also comes out with 40% University affiliated BOT members (2 of 5), and
that is fairly arbitrary since I know that Scott Bradner may be affiliated
with Harvard, but he does commercial consulting and technical writing as
well.   Do we count him as .5 University and .5 Commercial ?

>As for the appointment of the Executive Director and the ED of IANA as ex
>officio members, I would agree that that makes sense.  But, of course, it
>leaves the question of whether IANA will continue at all, since the

It is clear you have little idea what the IANA actually does.  Assigning IP
addresses are only a small part of IANA's duties.  Secondly ARIN will only
be assigning addresses from the block that the IANA assigns it to allocate
from.  (In the exact same way APNIC and RIPE do).

>decisions will now be made by ARIN.  And why was this decision made
>secretly?  This is not a major point of contention, except that it
>continues the tradition of secret meetings and decisions by a
>self-appointed cabal.  We actually might have supported such a decision,
>had it ever been open for discussion.  But so far, not much of ARIN besides
>its fee schedule and the announcement of trustees has been open for
>discussion.

Have you been following this thread with any seriousness?  The whole
concept has been completely open for dicussion.  An original proposal was
made, significant discussion was had, another draft was produced taking
into account the discussion.  There have been more tweaks since then.  I
fully expect the by-laws, etc. to go through a similar round of revisions.

There is another issue to consider.  The function of address allocation is
currently under contract to NSI for the next odd year or so.  It is only
with their consent for the next year or so.  

>It is the opinion of AOP's tax attorneys that ARIN, as presently outlined,
>would not be likely to qualify as a non-profit organization under Section
>501(c)(6) of the US Tax Code.  That code reads for that section:

>"Business leagues, chambers of commerce, real-estate boards, boards of
>trade, or professional football leagues (whether or not administering a
>pension fund for football players), not organized for profit and no part of
>the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder
>or individual."

>Actually, an ARIN organization might more properly fit under Section
>501(c)(3), which reads:
>
 ...Other legal stuff deleted for brevity.

I am not a lawyer but I have  been assured that ARIN has heavy duty legal
advisors working on all the legal aspects.

>It is unlikely that a free market will need, in the long term, to be taught
>the importance of IPv4 addresses.  And this still begs the
>question. . .isnt this what IANA does today?

No.  Feel free to look at the IANA web page to actually understand what the
IANA does.

>But, of course, no one involved with ARIN is actually listening.

What evidence do you have to back this spurious statement?  The entire
process has been open and has been responsive to suggestions and feedback.
If people disagree with your suggestions and they are not incorporated into
the proposal it does not necessarily follow that no one is listening, but
perhaps they don't agree with you.

>Michael, the level of vituperative attacks on this listserv are not because
>people are afraid to voice their support for ARIN.  It is because virtually
>everyone involved in ARIN is engaging in secret meetings, evasion of the
>facts, avoidance of answers and other actions that make them seem

Once again do you have any proof for your conspiracy theories.  IT should be
clear that undertaking such a complicated task, a lot of preliminary
meetings and discussions have to take place.  It sounds like you have been
reading to many IAHC messages :-)

>untrustworthy.  There are seven members of the ARIN Board of Trustees.  Who
>besides Kim Hubbard -- who is not posting regularly (Note: I don't blame
>her, I wouldn't want to take the rap for the whole Board, either) -- has
>even bothered to post here?

Scott Bradner, John Curran and Randy Bush.

>ARIN, in its most recent proposal, claims to have authority to take control
>over American IP addresses from IANA.  Okay.  Who gave IANA the authority
>to assign a non-competitive contract to ARIN?

It has not.  They have not.  IANA has given ARIN a block of addresses to
assign from.  This does not preclude the IANA from assigning other blocks
to other registries (not that I seriously believe that they will)


>I'll repeat my comment about the major ISPs.  How many support this
>proposal?  Why are they not here, voicing it?  I can tell you that the ISPs
>who are members of AOP -- more than 600, large and small -- do not support
>the current proposal.  And I would dearly love to hear withat MCI, SPrint,
>AT&T, UUNet, Earthlink, Netcom and others have to say on this subject.
>Where are they in this disucssion?

Have you actually polled all 600 of your members?  After your inflammatory
"Alert" I would expect a lot of opposition.  I have personaly talked with
almost all of your members who have posted to this list and in every case
they have gone back satisfied that the proposal is reasonable even if they
would like to continue to have it subsidized.  It's also wierd that all 600
members are against it but there were only about 300 allocations made last
year, so it is clear that at least half of your members are smaller
providers who will be minimally effected because their allocations are so
small.  



>On a personal level, I can accept that.  After all, I've been called worse
>than the names I've been called here.  But the fact is that what we are
>proposing is nothing short of the future of IP administration in the
>northern hemisphere, and I am stunned that it is being handed over so
>casually on the basis of blind trust.

Not blind trust.  I doubt anyone here believe that ARIN will go forward
until there are by-laws and more specifics worked out.  Typically you try
to define broad goals and objectives before you do the nitty gritty
detail.  

>If you are wrong, Michael, who will you complain to?  You will have no
>input, no voice, and no one in control except the seven people you helped
>give control of IP registries to.  What then?

As always, you can appeal to the IANA to assign a different block to
another registry, and appeal to the IAB who appoints the IANA.


>Regards,
>Dave McClure


--->  Phil