John, On Feb 19, 2008, at 9:17 AM, John Curran wrote:
What we now face is the simply reality of whether enabling a financial incentive for those who don't adhere to the community spirit incentive is overall worthwhile for the Internet.
Not really. I figure "community spirit" as a significant motivator died long, long ago and even if it did continue to exist, it certainly wouldn't survive the upcoming free-for-all in two or three years. The simple reality is that businesses who require IPv4 addresses to continue operations will do what is necessary to obtain them, regardless of what an informational document published over a decade ago or informal agreements with individuals sadly passed away might say. ARIN and the other RIRs can continue to try to ignore that reality, but the almost certain end state of that action is to make ARIN and the other RIRs irrelevant in IPv4 registration management (who would be relevant is left to the reader as an exercise).
Some will say this has certain unsavory aspects to it (such as discouraging altruistic return of address space) but that shouldn't preclude it from being considered at all.
The question really isn't whether or not financial incentives should be considered. They already are (as you well know). The question really should be how (or even if) the existing policy bodies can impose some form of self-regulation to keep the inevitable market behavior from completely running amok. Quoting sections of 2050 written when the Internet was quite different and free IPv4 space was plentiful, particularly given subsequent agreements between ICANN and the RIRs removed IANA from any significant address management role, is merely wasting time. Regards, -drc