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

> 	As the process is consensus-oriented, rather than 
> majority-oriented,
> 	I would find it helpful to have an authoritative 
> summary issue-tracking
> 	statement.  I'm not sure whether this should better 
> come from either WG
> 	Co-Chair, or rather from the NCC Policy Development Office.

I agree, and I also think that we need to see a list of the names
of all the people who play a role in evaluating wether or not
consensus exists, and who make the consensus position into formal
RIPE policy. 

I believe that this is the first RIPE policy change in which the
issue of financial conflict of interest is a consideration.
Theoretically, the people who manage the policy process could
directly benefit financially from that process if they have
IP address allocations from RIPE or IANA, or if they own part of 
a company which has such allocations. Theoretically, some of the
people supporting this policy, may wish to have IP address allocation
transfers outside of RIPE in order to sell their unneeded IP address
without anyone knowing that they are making money from this.
We cannot demand everyone participating in the consensus to reveal
their potential to benefit financially from the change, but I think
that it is reasonable to ask the "officials" to put their financial
position on the public record.

Given a scenario where LIR A has addresses which they no longer need,
and LIR B needs addresses but the RIPE free pool is empty, then the only
motivation that I can see for changing the current process is to allow
LIR A to sell their addresses in a secret financial transaction.

If LIR A no longer needs the addresses then they no longer have a
technical
justification for having that allocation, and under current rules they 
should return the addresses to RIPE. If LIR A did this, then LIR B has a
chance to receive the addresses that they need. Of course, LIR C may
also
want those same addresses, and in that scenario, the current RIPE policy
has no way to resolve the situation other than first-come, first served.
But the proposed changes allow LIR A to run a secret auction and
transfer
the addresses to the highest bidder.

Neither of these scenarios describes a "market" of any colour other than
"black".
It is precisely to avoid these scenarios that the EU and other
jurisdictions have market regulation. This kind of regulation generally
involves transparency so that the prices paid in the transaction are
publicised. In many cases, the bid prices are also publicised so that we
would not only know how much the winner paid in the second scenario, but
we would know the bid made by the loser.

Considering that IPv4 is now on the road to being obsolete, I don't see
any benefit to the IP network operations community from such market
scenarios.

--Michael Dillon