Peter, [IEPG added as this isn't just a North American issue] Executive summary: come to the PIARA and IRE BOFs at the Montreal IETF.
We charge *everyone* for registration services. That is how it should be. There is no reason why governments (read: taxpayers) should be footing the bill. This would be ok if there was a market for registry's.
While I am generally a strong proponent of creating a market for registry services, I will be honest and admit things just aren't set up for the registries to compete yet.
The current Ripe approach seems to build a large byracrazy, with lots and lots of paperworks, so you need more resources to process the paperworks, does not really support the part of the Internet we are where supposed to facilitate.
From my (admittedly biased) perspective, it would seem there are two
The existance of a bureaucracy and "lots and lots of paperworks" is the direct result of what I consider the complete raving irrationality of the current registry system. What would you propose the registries do to meet the requirements of a) conserving address space, b) conserving routing table space, and c) allocating the remaining free pool of addresses in a "fair" fashion when we're constrained by (arguably) obsolete policies put in place in the days when the Internet was one big happy R&E community? options: A) The socalist approach B) The capitalist approach Right now, the registries use option A. Addresses are allocated "to each according to need" and the regional registries that charge (APNIC and RIPE-NCC) request "from each according to ability" (at least to some extent). As a result, since the definition of "need" is hard to pin down, a bureaucracy is created and (since there is no other acceptible way of verifying needs and/or reducing the address allocation rate), huge amounts of paperwork and oodles of tedious forms are necessary to submit requests. Every time someone (who me?) brings up option B, we go chasing merrily down one or more of the following ratholes: 1) we need to conserve route table space, lets charge for that, not addresses (irrelevant) 2) AT&T (or some other evil speculator) will buy up all the address space (and ISPs are just going to sit idly by?) 3) if you charge, then poor organizations can't connect to the Internet (so who's paying for their connectivity?) 4) you can't charge for addresses because they're just numbers and have no value (tell that to the US Treasury) Regardless of the validity of any of these ratholes, they are missing the point -- without some OBJECTIVELY VERIFIABLE CRITERIA, the registries must rely on people being honest and forthright about their requirements. Money (e.g., a charge per address) has proven to be a pretty effective objectively verifiable criteria to determine whether someone *really* needs the address space they are requesting. However, since option B is theo-politically infeasible for whatever reason, you get option A, with increasingly draconian rules and ever growing mountains of paperwork. Life is harsh.
If there is a finite resource that needs to be managed, it should be done in a fair way for all players, and right now i don't think that's not the case if we look at the globe as a whole.
What is "fair"? Is it fair early adopters have (mutliples of) /8s and will never need to go through the registry hassle? Is it fair that the current allocation policies are (statistically speaking) conserving address space to the benefit of the large ISPs, most of which are in the US? Would it be fairer if the registries allocated /14s (or /19s) to everyone regardless of requirements? Should everyone who wants an IP address be given one, regardless of what they'll use it for? Should addresses only be given to ISPs? The registries try to be "fair", from their perspective. Presumably, the concern you are expressing here is that the regional registries have implemented the various policies somewhat differently. I believe this was a specific goal of RFC 1466 which created the multiple registries in the first place. The registries are trying to coordinate policies, but we're somewhat constrained by the different communities we serve (e.g., what is considered a "small ISP" in the US is likely to be larger than most of the ISPs in the AP region).
Fix the rules,
Not to pick on you in particular, but I didn't see a lot of comment from you or other people on the registry guidelines draft. Please indicate what rules need to be fixed (I have my own set, but I'd like to see other people's).
open up more registrys wich all apply the same rules,
Applying all the same rules would tend to imply ignoring the differences in the development in the Internet throughout the world. Is this what people really want (honest question -- there are arguments on both sides)? Oh yeah, check out how many bits there are for registries in IPv6...
maybe someone needs to audit the registrys to make sure that things are done correct,
Who and who would pay them?
and have them compete on speed and effectiveness and cost.
I think we agree this should be the end goal. How do we get there? For those who are interested in this gunk, there will be 2 BOFs at the Montreal IETF: Pricing of Internet Addresses and Route Advertisements (PIARA) and Internet Registry Evolution (IRE) I'm sure both BOFs will be non-controversial and quite sedate. Stop on by if you want to catch up on your sleep... :-). Regards, -drc P.S. So which rathole are we going to go down this time? 30 quatloos on rathole #4 (it's my favorite 'cause it's so silly (Hi Brian!)).