Forwarded w/o attribution. (perhaps this is not appropriate but I do feel this way alot... :) -bill There are really only <n> discussions on NANOG/CIDRD, which occasionally flare up like spontaneously combusting drunks on rs-talk, iepg, and ietf as well. Herein, a kind of Meta-FAQ, a Field Guide to the Meta-Wars: 1. InterNIC-bashing, complete with loud revisitings of the legitimacy of the InterNIC in particular and the entire registry concept in general. Recently this is characterized also by thundering herds of lawyers explaining how the Internet must change to accommodate American trademark law and repeated threats to sue the IANA by various people with 386s and 56k lines who want to run top-level domain registries. Inevitable conclusion: We need a heavily regulated, global free market in DNS registries, as well as more root servers and the IANA to be shot or elected or crowned king or something. 2. The IP Address Allocation wars, complete with Noel Chiappa's brilliant explanations of the relevant graph theory, "Life is unfair" lectures from large (or non) ISPs, "The net is unfair" whines from small (or wannabe) ISPs, and many non-lawyers ranting about restraint of trade and other topics in antitrust law and public policy. Inevitable conclusion: We need a heavily regulated, global free market in address space and routing advertisements, as well as bigger routers and faster light. 3. ISP bashing, with elements of both the above plus much more, inevitably including Sprint bashing wrt route filtering and NAP policy. Inevitable conclusion: Sprint is Babylon and Sean Doran is the antiChrist. Inevitable conclusion: everybody should peer with the Route Servers, except for when everybody should blow them up and peer with everybody down to Bill's Bait & Sushi Shoppe for free. Coming attraction: Will MFuuSoftNet be an Even Bigger Threat to The Net As We Know It. Meta-conclusion: it's sort of reassuring. "Imminent collapse of the Internet, GIFs at 11:00".....