The same text below was just posted to the ARIN PPML. It is being posted here because it relates to a BoF session held at NANOG 42. Follow-up should be exclusively on the ARIN PPML. Instructions for subscribing to PPML are at the bottom of this message. ================================ As most of you already know, members of the ARIN AC conducted a BoF session at NANOG 42 to try and gather additional community feedback about IPv4 Exhaustion, and, specifically, the AC Authored IPv4 transfer policy. Due to last minute scheduling, the BoF was held at a time which conflicted with the Peering BoF and the IPv6 Tutorial. Despite these conflicts, the BoF was surprisingly well attended and we were able to have a good and productive discussion. Early in the discussion, it was discovered that most present had not come to a clear understanding of the Transfer Policy Proposal. Some explanation and clarification was provided by various members of the AC. Some key provisions that were discussed were: + Requirement for both parties in a transfer to sign an RSA This is in keeping with preserving contractual parity in the transfer process. + Intent of the listing service The details of the listing service were omitted from the policy proposal due to time constraints and to preserve some flexibility to work with ARIN staff on the design and criteria to fully meet the needs of ARIN and the community. Generally, the expectation is that the listing service data will be as open and public as possible with the intent of allowing as much information as possible to potential transferors/transferees prior to engaging in the process. + Effects on Current policy Current merger/acquisition/divestiture policy remains unchanged. The proposed re-titling of the policy focused on merger/acquisition merely as an oversight, not in an intent to change the handling of such transfers. Hopefully this will be addressed in the next revision of the policy proposal. + Implementation date IANA Free pool runout was chosen because it is objectively factual. ARIN runout will be staggered with ARIN unable to issue larger blocks before it runs out of smaller ones. Additionally, using IANA runout allows the policy and associated market to kind of spin up and gain some experience before ARIN runs out. + Potential Legal Issues Nobody present at the BoF was prepared or qualified to speak on behalf of ARIN from a legal perspective. As a result, questions regarding legal ramifications were deferred as out of scope for the BoF session. ARIN Counsel will present a review of the proposed policy at the ARIN meeting in Denver. It will also be posted to the PPML. In general, the idea of a transfer policy was received with a neutral to positive response. There were no strong negative reactions expressed. There were several questions about likely efficacy and whether this policy would actually accomplish anything. Leo Bicknell made the point that without this policy or something like it, the world becomes set in stone after IPv4 runout. Haves have and have nots have not and there's no way for that to change. With this proposal, there's at least the possibility if folks can come to agreement on the subject. Thanks to everyone who attended the BoF. Your input was very useful to the AC. I encourage anyone interested in further participating in the policy process to subscribe to the ARIN PPML (http://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/ppml) and post your comments there. Respectfully submitted, Owen DeLong ARIN AC