On Apr 8, 2010, at 2:29 PM, joe mcguckin wrote:
I think the more interesting discussion is: - Where is ARIN and the RIR's headed? - What will ARIN look like 10 years from now?
Joe - Excellent questions... The direction with respect to ARIN is that the Board has spent significant time considering this issue and the guidance provided to date is that ARIN is to focus on its core mission of providing allocation and registration services, and be supportive of other related organizations (e.g. NANOG, ICANN, ISOC) which perform related functions in the community. This approach has reduced the risk of mission creep (at least as far as I can tell... :-) From a practical matter, it also means that we need to consider a future for ARIN which provides a core address registry function, modest IPv4 updates and modest IPv6 new allocation activity, and likely a very stable policy framework. This vision of the future is highly compatible with automation, and ARIN is indeed working aggressively in this area with ARIN Online. I do think that automation plus a reduction in activity will result in a modest reduction in overall costs, but the costs associated with having an open community-based organization aren't necessarily changing: - If you have the community to elect AC and Board members, then you have a membership/election function (which implies specific costs in the organization). - If you have the community set policy via an open policy process, then you have a policy process, policy proposal administration, and public policy meetings (which again implies more costs to the organization, roughly proportional to the policy activity). - If you participate in the global policy process (coordinating with other RIR's, ICANN, and now the ITU), then there is yet another set of costs to be covered by the organization. I'm committed to keeping the costs reasonable and proper for the mission, but its the community that needs to think about that mission and what they want ARIN (and the RIR community as a whole) to be doing 10+ years from now... Input can be provided in many forms, including on the mailing lists, in-person and remotely in the Public Policy Meeting, via the various consultations that ARIN does with respect to services and fees, and directly via running for the ARIN Board in the annual election process. Thank you for raising this topic! /John John Curran President and CEO ARIN