On 10 Dec 2021, at 5:00 PM, John Gilmore <
gnu@toad.com> wrote:
...
Owen, the root of your problem is that you signed an LRSA with ARIN,
rather than keeping your legacy resources un-tainted by an ARIN contract
that deliberately reduced your rights
Signing a contract with ARIN certainly clarifies and makes specific the rights involved, but it is not possible to say “reduces” with any certainty as the existing rights are rather unclear without a specific statement of what rights were granted at the
time. Alas, issuance of number resources in the early days did not make the rights or associated obligations clear. Some legacy resource holders find entering into an RSA with ARIN to be quite useful and others prefer not to
– that choice is up to them, and is not required as the the ARIN Board of Trustees has directed that ARIN continue to provide the same basic registration services available at our formation to all legacy resource holders
without fee or contract.
There is at least one certain reduction… It removes the right to stop doing business with ARIN without surrendering the rights you had before you started.
The short-term contract for the transfer honors and retains the legacy
status of those resources: that you own them, not the ARIN fiction that
an RIR now controls them and will steal them from you if you stop paying
them annually.
For organizations that do enter into a registration agreement with ARIN, there are indeed obligations (such as payment of registry fees) that are quite real but also benefits such as the ability to obtain new services funded by such fees and participation
in the governance of ARIN. As noted above - folks can enter into an agreement (or not) as they deem best. Note one of the other advantages of the upcoming change to ARIN’s fee structure is that it will also open up ARIN membership and voting to all contracted
registry customers with IPv4 or IPv6 number resources – rather than just those previously deemed ISPs – so those who do enter into a RSA and choose to participate in ARIN governance will have the equal ability to vote for the Board and set ARIN’s practices
with regard to legacy resource holders.
I have no use for these supposed new services (which as near as I can tell boil down to RPKI and a new version of an IRR which equivalent service can be obtained elsewhere at no cost, such as ALTDB).
Since I’ve never used any of these supposed new services and they are of no benefit to me, subsidizing them at an ever increasing price ins’t an attractive option.
There was a time when entering into the agreement seemed best. Unfortunately, the problem is the hotel California nature of the agreement. You can check in any time you like, but you can never leave (at least not in tact).
Owen