[address-policy-wg] Revised 2007-01 moved back to Review Period (Direct Internet Resource Assignments to End Users from the RIPE NCC)

Nick Hilliard wrote:
> Are you saying that revocation shouldn't happen?  It means that all 
> assignments are given in perpetuity, unless the holder explicitly hands 
> the address space back.  If the address space isn't used, or if the 
> holder disappears, then the address space is lost forever.  It's a 
> memory leak which needs to be fixed.

And even with knowing the v4 situation, als RIRs seem to be running into 
the same trap yet again, eyes closed ... Apart from technical issues 
(like e.g. no recommendations as to IP usage - do I need to quote people 
advocating use of /64 for PTP-Transfernetworks? How many machines do 
they actually expect to see on a Point-to-Point link?)

Why not start doing it right while we still can - at least RIPE doesn't 
have PIv6 yet, so when better to start (and that is for all RIRs) ... 
Hand out PI only with either a reasonable yearly renewal fee (billed to 
the user, not the LIR getting it for them), or at least implement an 
active renewal policy - once a year, a user/company has 3 months to 
confirm continued use by a simple web interface (should take less than a 
week's work to program), with 3 final notices reminding them to actively 
do confirm use. If they don't answer or don't exist anymore, the space 
is automatically returned to the RIR for reuse (possibly with some 
internal grace period), as they obviously don't need it anymore. Also, 
put this in the contract and you're pretty much safe. Is this really so 
hard to implement? Is there any provider that could be opposed to such a 
handling? After all, any of you having PA already are in the same 
position - you pay yearly dues to keep your IP space.

The same should apply to already given out PI space, though I do 
understand the problem of contacting owners of some ancient PI 
registrations - but maybe some legal advocate could point out whether 
the requirement to have your RIPE db data up to date could be used as a 
basis to reclaim IP space from people that can't be contacted and whose 
space isn't in the global routing tables ...

Anyway, anybody falling into the "no more IPv4 addresses" pit in some 
18-36 months is at his own fault for not preparing for v6 in time ... 
Yes it costs money (both for hard/software and time spent), but v4 is a 
dead man walking, so don't wait until he's strapped down and waiting for 
the switch to be flicked ...

-garry