On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 4:14 PM, Benson Schliesser <bensons@queuefull.net> wrote:
Meanwhile, under the current system, ARIN has managed to accumulate a >$25M cash reserve despite an increasing budget. (see https://www.arin.net/participate/meetings/reports/ARIN_XXVII/PDF/Wednesday/a...)
If you want ARIN to reduce its fees, you can propose that. The fiduciaries at ARIN may say, "you're right, we do have more money than we need or foresee to need to operate," and recommend that fees be reduced. They may provide justification for this "war chest," such as the possibility of legal battles over address transfers. Who knows? Is your problem that ARIN spends its money poorly? I believe it does in some ways, but the community generally does not care enough to try to improve this. I questioned ARIN's travel budget a few years ago and was essentially flamed for doing so. You seem to think the difference between ARIN's expenditures and revenues is too large, resulting in a large cash reserve. Okay, if that's important to you, there is a forum for that discussion. I don't think anything will be done about it through a discussion on NANOG, but you can certainly bring it up on the various ARIN mailing lists, or ask ARIN board/staff to share their thoughts with you. I really don't think the cost of ARIN fees for IP address and ASN allocations are all that important to ARIN members. In my position as a senior technical resource for numerous ARIN members, I am much more interested in ARIN providing more services to members, or improving upon existing ones (IRR), than I am in any reduction of fees. Again, my position is reflected clearly in my public mailing list posts on this subject. Note that one of the things I think ARIN should improve upon, which ARIN has committed to improve, is its IRR database. There are already alternatives available, I'm glad ARIN has decided to increase the usefulness and quality of its IRR database. If they don't, you can still choose to use a third-party database. I don't share your view that a fragmented WHOIS/DNS ecosystem would be all that beneficial to stakeholders. In the absence of ARIN members flocking to PPML to complain about ARIN's travel budget or its increasing cash reserve, I don't think ARIN members are particularly concerned about reducing ARIN's fees. -- Jeff S Wheeler <jsw@inconcepts.biz> Sr Network Operator / Innovative Network Concepts