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

Tom,

On Jun 13, 2008, at 9:29 AM, Tom Vest wrote:
> It sounds like you're leaning toward favoring systems for  
> recognizing inter-party transfers that are "nice" (i.e., that  
> conform to whatever policies the community is willing to abide)  
> because you predict that the community is unwilling to abide  
> policies that that some members don't like -- specifically the ones  
> that forbid inter-party transfers...

More or less.

I'm interested in recognizing that:

a) there are folks who will continue to need IPv4 addresses for the  
foreseeable future
b) there are folks who will have more IPv4 addresses than they need
c) as opposed to communist nation-states, the mechanisms the RIRs have  
to enforce the shared dictum "to each according to need" are extremely  
limited and absolutely rely on "the consent of the governed", many (if  
not most) of which are commercial organizations generally intent on  
continuing to grow their businesses.

Because I do not believe the RIRs have repealed the Law of Supply and  
Demand, (a) and (b) will result in a market.  Because of (c), the RIRs  
can either choose to encourage alternative registries (and making  
themselves irrelevant) by not recognizing the transfers that occur in  
that market or they can choose to perform the function of registering  
address assignments made between consenting parties and thereby  
maintaining some ability to affect address reassignment policy.

My impression is that most (rational) folks agree with (a) and (b).  I  
gather (c) is where there is disagreement and I'm trying to understand  
why.  Hence my question to Jay.

> ftp://ftp.ietf.org/ietf-online-proceedings/95apr/area.and.wg.reports/ops/cidrd/cidrd.rekhter.slides.ps
> Was Yakov always wrong? Has something changed to make him less wrong  
> today?

Yakov was attempting to demonstrate that "address ownership" is  
detrimental to scaling the Internet if you assume routing technology  
does not change.  It was an argument for PA address space and against  
PI.  This remains true, but as evidenced by the proliferation of PI  
policies and assignments, is largely ignored today. It is also largely  
irrelevant to this discussion since I (at least) am not making the  
assumption that service providers will be excluded from the market  
(indeed, I suspect they're going to be the most desperate to obtain  
address space since enterprises can and do sit happily behind a NAT  
box numbered with PA space).

Regards,
-drc