Responding to no one in particular, and not representing views of any current or former employer ...

I find all of this hullabaloo to be ... fascinating. A little background to frame my comments below. I was GM of the IANA in the early 2000's, I held a tech license from 1994 through 2004 (I gave it up because life changed, and I no longer had time; but I still have all my toys, err, I mean, gear); and I have known two of the ARDC board members and one of the advisors listed at https://www.ampr.org/amprnet/ for over fifteen years. I consider them all friends, and trust their judgement explicitly. One of them I've known for over 20 years, and consider a close and very dear friend.

There have been a number of points over the past 30 years where anyone who genuinely cared about this space could have used any number of mechanisms to raise concerns over how it's been managed, and by whom. I cannot help but think that some of this current sound and fury is an excuse to express righteous indignation for its own sake. The folks involved with ARDC have been caring for the space for a long time. From my perspective, seeing the writing on the wall regarding the upcoming friction around IPv4 space as an asset with monetary value increasing exponentially, they took quite reasonable steps to create a legal framework to ensure that their ability to continue managing the space would be protected. Some of you may remember that other groups, like the IETF, were taking similar steps before during and after that same time frame. Sure, you can complain about what was done, how it was done, etc.; but where were you then? Are you sure that at least part of your anger isn't due to the fact that all of these things have happened over the last 20 years, and you had no idea they were happening?

So let's talk a little about what "stewardship" means. Many folks have complained about how ARDC has not done a good job of $X function that stewards of the space should perform. Do you think having some money in the bank will help contribute to their ability to do that? Has anyone looked at how much of the space is actually being used now, and what percentage reduction in available space carving out a /10 actually represents? And nowadays when IPv6 is readily available essentially "for free," how much is the amateur community actually being affected by this?

And with all due respect to Jon (and I mean that sincerely), what did it/does it really mean that "Jon gave $PERSON the space for $REASON" 30 years later? Jon was a brilliant guy, but from what I've been told would also be one of the first to admit when he made a mistake. One of which, and one that he actively campaigned to fix, was the idea of classful address space to start with, and particularly the idea that it was OK to hand out massive chunks of it to anyone who asked. As a former ham I definitely appreciate the concept of them having space to play ... errr, experiment with. But did they ever, really, need a /8? Historically, what percentage of that space has ever actually been used? And as Dave Conrad pointed out, given all of the "historical" allocations that have been revisited and/or repurposed already, is taking another look at 44/8 really that far out of line?

Now all that said, if any of my friends had asked me how I thought news of this sale should have been handled, I would have told them that this reaction that we're seeing now is 100% predictable, and while it could never be eliminated entirely it could be limited in scope and ferocity by getting ahead of the message. At minimum when the transfer occurred. But that doesn't change anything about my opinion that the sale itself was totally reasonable, done by reasonable people, and in keeping with the concept of being good stewards of the space.

hope this helps,

Doug