-----Original Message----- From: Joe Greco [mailto:jgreco@ns.sol.net] It seems like you could run an RIR more cheaply by simply handing out the space fairly liberally, which would have the added benefit of encouraging v6 adoption. The lack of a need for onerous contractual clauses as suggested above, combined with less overhead costs, ought to make v6 really cheap.
For "fairly liberally" see: For ISPs: https://www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html#six51 You have to be an ISP with a plan to have 200 assignment in 5 years Non-ISP: https://www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html#six58 Be not-an-ISP and have a need for addresses (per other policies, you get to choose which one). In another post you asked essentially "why does ARIN charge so much?" ARIN doesn't just maintain a notebook of address assignments. There are HA servers for Whois, IN-ADDR. and IP6.ARPA, research in things like SIDR, DNSsec, other tools-services, and educational outreach on IPv6. You suggest that there's much less to argue about in IPv6 policy, but if you look at current proposals (https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/) you'll see three that are IPv6-specific, and most of the others cover both IPv4 and IPv6. So ARIN will continue to maintain the mailing lists, and hold public policy meetings (with remote participation, so anyone can participate), and facilitate elections so you can throw the bums out if you don't like how we do things. We don't really know how much IPv6 will cost ARIN. If there were no more debate about allocation policies, and nobody else had any interest in us (politically or litigiously), and technology were fairly static, then we might just do periodic tech refreshes and be fine. I imagine all of those things will continue for a while, though, and ARIN will need to be financially solvent through the transition. Your ARIN fee does not cover me posting here. That's gratis, and worth it. Lee