[address-policy-wg] RE: [policy-announce] 2009-06 New Policy Proposal (Removing Routing Requirements from the IPv6 Address Allocation Policy)

I'm sorry if I missed a crucial part of the conversation, but I've stopped 
understanding how this discussion relates to the policy proposal at hand.

There is certainly a discussion that can be had about what type of network 
qualifies for unique address space. These types of networks can already 
trivially comply with the existing policy by announcing the address space on 
the public internet and nullrouting all traffic. Obviously not to be 
encouraged, but that's a consequence of a one-line requirement like this.

So I do not see how changing the policy in this way has any effect (other than 
the beneficial effect of not encouraging such announcements) and I have seen no 
amendments to the policy that would have any effect. I would encourage someone 
to make a policy proposal on this topic - it is something that needs airing 
irrespective of 2009-06.

The alternate argument that I see is that we should not shirk our 
responsibility to set good policies simply because we "don't do routing". I 
fully agree with this. If we are to do it in this document, however, then we 
have a fragile allocation policy that is subject to the winds of operational 
practice. Already we see requests to allow, say, multiple /32s for LIRs that 
operate multiple independent (and independently routed) networks.

This is not just an abstract preference: already we see requests to allow, say, 
multiple /32s for LIRs that operate multiple independent (and independently 
routed) networks. A direct consequence of the existing policy is that they may 
not deaggregate. So we have tied the hands of routing best practice and will 
continue to do so unless and until we remove the routing restriction from the 
addressing policy and deal with it separately.

So I can't see anything in the current arguments that are really affected by 
this policy proposal, at least not adversely. I'd like to see it ratified. We 
can work on separate proposals which might affect them.

All the best,
Dave

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Dave Wilson, Senior Network Engineer
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