On Aug 15, 2010, at 1:20 AM, David Conrad wrote:
It has been depressing to watch participants in ARIN (in particular) suggest all will be well if people would just sign away their rights via an LRSA, ...
Actually, you've got it backwards. The Legacy RSA provides specific contractual rights which take precedence over present policy or any policy that might be made which would otherwise limit such rights: "In the event of any inconsistency between the Policies and this Legacy Agreement, the terms of this Legacy Agreement will prevail, including but not limited to those Policies adopted after this Legacy Agreement is executed." Without signing an LRSA, it's just status quo, which is also seems to fine option at present for those who like things they way they are. The specific LRSA right that most folks are interested in include: "ARIN will take no action to reduce the services provided for Included Number Resources that are not currently being utilized by the Legacy Applicant.", and additional the $100 annual fee, and with an annual cap on any increases. The Legacy RSA is a voluntary way for legacy block holders to have certainty regarding the registry services including WHOIS, in-addr, etc. It's entirely voluntary, for those who prefer to have contractual rights for an otherwise uncertain situation.
Pragmatically speaking, it seems the most likely to be successful way of maintaining stability with the impending resource exhaustion state is to give up pretenses of being regulatory agency and concentrate on the role of being a titles registry.
Focusing on becoming a title registry is easily done if the community adopts policy to such effect, but it is an exercise to reader whether that increases or decreases stability depending on the exact policies. The specified transfer policy that developed by the community allows those who needs addresses to receive them from anyone holding them, and keeps ARIN out of the financials of the transaction and focused on recording it. Yes, we do require that the resources first be under RSA/LRSA, because we research each legacy block through that process to make sure we're not otherwise recording a hijacked address block as valid. Pragmatically speaking, I would note that such validation is nearly the textbook role for a "title" registry, and attempts to record transfers without first doing the historical scrub will nearly guarantee instability. (Followups for this really should be to PPML.) /John John Curran President and CEO ARIN