On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 4:41 AM, Joe Abley <jabley@hopcount.ca> wrote:

On 25-Mar-2009, at 18:24, Leo Bicknell wrote:

...

The ARIN Board has put forth an emergency policy change: https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2009_1.html

For those not following the discussion on ppml, and perhaps not especially familiar with the policu or the policy process, could you either describe or give a concise link to a description of the context for this change?

Joe, The short, short version: ARIN's board may have gone rogue. The slightly longer version: There is some concern among the regular denizens of the ARIN public policy process that some majority the ARIN board of trustees has gone rogue as evidenced by the board's activity surrounding policy proposal 2009-01. Specifically, the board may be trying to use an obscure emergency provision to insert IP address sale and transfer policy language that slickly contravenes the expressed community consensus. As ARIN's regular denizens are not exactly unbiased, they respectfully request that ARIN's general membership (the network operators) take a closer look at the matter while they still can. Because the board has invoked "emergency" rules, the membership has only two weeks to examine the matter. After a week from Tuesday the board's IP address sale rules will be fait accompli. For the long version, please refer to the ARIN public policy mailing list, archives of which you can find at http://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-ppml/ Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

Joe Abley wrote:

On 25-Mar-2009, at 18:24, Leo Bicknell wrote:

...

The ARIN Board has put forth an emergency policy change:

https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2009_1.html

For those not following the discussion on ppml, and perhaps not especially familiar with the policu or the policy process, could you either describe or give a concise link to a description of the context for this change?

Textually, the change is fairly simple. Proposal 2008-6 [1] was adopted by the BoT after a finding of consensus by the ARIN AC, and the relevant part reads: -------------------- Policy statement: Emergency Transfer Policy for IPv4 Addresses For a period of 3 years from policy implementation, authorized resource holders served by ARIN may designate a recipient for number resources they release to ARIN. Number resources may only be received under RSA in the exact amount which can be justified under ARIN resource-allocation policies. Timetable for implementation: This policy, once ratified by the ARIN Board of Trustees, would be implemented when either the free-pool of IANA addresses is exhausted or IPv4 address resources in the ARIN Region reach a threshold of scarcity recognized by the ARIN Board of Trustees as requiring this policy implementation. -------------------- The BoT then proposed emergency policy 2009-1 [2], which has some minor editorial changes (e.g. section renumbering) and the following relevant text: -------------------- *8.3 Transfers to Specified Recipients* Number resources may be released, in whole or in part, to ARIN for transfer to another specified organizational recipient, by any authorized resource holder within the ARIN region. Such transferred number resources may only be received by organizations that are within the ARIN region and can demonstrate the need for such resources in the exact amount which they can justify under current ARIN policies. -------------------- Most notably, the revised text does not contain the 3-year "sunset" clause that was a fundamental part of 2008-6. It is also unclear (to me) whether the "timetable for implementation" specified in 2008-6 also applies to 2009-1. As to the remaining changes, you can decide for yourself whether the rewrite has a material effect on the type of IPv4 address market this policy would create. The BoT did not mention any relevant issues with the text of 2008-6 to the PPML, to the AC, or at the Public Policy Meetings it was discussed at prior to taking this action, nor has it (officially[3]) published any explanation for its changes, why it could not send 2008-6 back to the AC for modification, or why it believes there is an "emergency" that precludes this proposal following the normal PDP. The use of the Emergency PDP requires a last call that ends 7 Apr 2009, less than a month before the next Public Policy Meeting (26-29 Apr 2009). My opinion: This policy should be rejected, regardless of its merits, because of how the BoT has (so far) handled it in violation of the spirit (though, admittedly, not the letter) of the process, how it disregards community consensus and attempts to sidestep community review, the complete and utter lack of transparency that we expect from ARIN, and the glaringly obvious lack of any "emergency" with a policy that isn't expected to be implemented for _at least_ another year or two. If there is indeed a flaw in 2008-6 that needs correcting, let it be discussed at the meeting next month and the AC and BoT can then take the appropriate non-emergency action. S [1] https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2008_6.html [2] https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2009_1.html [3] The BoT Chair has posted several messages on PPML about this, but they do not appear to be official statements by the entire BoT. I haven't noticed any other BoT members commenting. -- Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking