[address-policy-wg] 2007-08 Review Period extended until 9 July 2008 (Enabling Methods for Reallocation of IPv4 Resources)

On Thu, 12 Jun 2008, Jay Daley wrote:
> * It breaks the policy of providing addresses to those who need them in a
> fair and non-discriminatory fashion because it allows LIRs to choose who
> gets spare addresses for arbitrary and secret reasons rather than through
> the open and transparent process of the RIR.

Uh, what exactly is the "open and transparent process of the RIR"?

It appears to me that the process is basically, "send a secret request 
to RIPE NCC hostmasters, they will process (and possibly follow up) it 
in secret, but the only thing public and transparent is the IP block 
granted".  The fact that you've been granted an IP address block of 
some size is public, but the reasoning given or the considerations 
taken are not.  Even if after the fact an allocation causes some 
astonishment, there is in reality no process to get justification on 
why the allocation was made the way it has been.  As a result, even if 
you'd follow all the new allocations (not very easy AFAIR), you 
wouldn't have a way to keep the requestors and hostmasters honest.

Now, if the address allocation requests were public and open for 
public comment, then I could say the process is transparent.

As it is, the "fairness" of the process hinges on whether RIPE NCC 
hostmasters are able to "equalize" the address space requestors 
somehow.

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings