Ownerless PI Revokation, was Re: [address-policy-wg] Revised 2007-01...

Michael,

Since you quote a work I co-authored, allow me respond:

You state correctly that the current policy states that all IPv4 addresses
allocated thorugh the Internet registry system according to the relevant
policies at the time of allocation are unique regardless of their use. 

Policies are not natural laws, they can change over time.  Usually they
change whenever the environment or the requirements change.  The
operative change in this case is scarcity of unallocated IPv4 addresses
which in turn will limit the growth of the Internet and the private IP
networks alike. 

In this particluar case the operators of the Internet, *could* decide to
change the uniqueness requirements such that IP addresses allocated via
the present RIR system need only be unique as far as they are used on
the Internet, for some definition of that.

That would mean that IP addresses that were once guaranteed to be
globally unique regardless of whether they were used on the Internet or
private IP networks would no longer be guaranteed to be globally unique.
Such a policy change would need to be designed and implemented carefully
in order to enable all actors to make the necessary operational
adjustments and to continue to guarantee registration and uniqueness
within the newly defined domains.

Such adjustments would almost certainly mean that operators of private
or not widely announced IP networks would incur costs.  On the other hand
in the absence of such adjustments the operators of the Internet would incur costs 
because of the unavailability of IPv4 addresses. I am sure such trade-offs would
be discussed vividly within BT. ;-)

Responsible policy making will take into account these basic issues and
adjust policies where necessary.  In this particular case it is
important to consider the likelihood of un-coordinated use of IPv4 addresses
which are allocated but not widely used on the Internet and the associated
operational costs as well as the consequential loss of credibility of 
the Internet registry system.

Blindly insisting on the status-quo in the face of a changing
environment is never helpful and often counter-productive. 

So I encourage those that favour "reclamation" propose concrete 
policies which take into account the issues which Michael raises.
Making the right trade-offs is the art here. Most requirements
are not as absolute as they may appear at first.

One avenue to proceed could be to create multiple IPv4 address 
space registries ... boxes inside Pandora's ?

Daniel