[address-policy-wg] 2013-03 New Draft Document and Impact Analysis Published (No Need - Post-Depletion Reality Adjustment and Clean up)

* Malcolm Hutty

> 1. The main argument in favour of 2013-03, as I understand it, is in the
> title "Post-Depletion Reality Adjustment and Clean up". It has been
> expressed in the summary
> 
> /'The goal that precipitated the requirement to demonstrate need for
> delegations is explicitly stated in section 3.0.3 of the policy, which
> reads:
> 
> Conservation: Public IPv4 address space must be fairly distributed to
> the End Users operating networks. To maximise the lifetime of the public
> IPv4 address space, addresses must be distributed according to need, and
> stockpiling must be prevented.
> 
> Following the depletion of the IANA free pool on the 3rd of February
> 2011, and the subsequent depletion of the RIPE NCC free pool on the 14th
> of September 2012, the "lifetime of the public IPv4 address space" in
> the RIPE NCC region has reached zero, making the stated goal
> unattainable and therefore obsolete. This proposal attempts to recognise
> this fact by removing all policy requirements that was working
> exclusively towards attaining this "Conservation" goal.'/
> 
> However this argument is fallacious. The Conservation policy, even as
> stated, expresses *two separate* policy objectives: 'fair distribution',
> and maximising the lifetime of the public address pool. Depletion means
> that reality has superseded the second objective, but not necessarily
> the first.

Hi again Malcom,

Having slept on it, I have a suggestion that hopefully will make us
reach common ground. How about, instead of removing the old Conservation
goal completely, we rewrite it as follows:

«Fair use: Public IPv4 address space must be fairly distributed to the
End Users operating networks.»

This would only remove the second "reality-superseded" objective, but
not the first. It would also continue to provide the philosophical
foundation on which we may build "enforcement" policies in the future,
so we certainly would not be "closing the door" on any such discussion.

Furthermore, it might even help the NCC in their political/government
interactions, as they can truthfully maintain that their goal with
regards to IPv4 is still to provide for fair distribution and fair use.

Would such an amendment make the proposal more appealing to you, at
least enough to make reach the "I can live with this" point? (This
question goes for the others who have noted their reservation towards
the proposal too, feel free to chime in!)

For what it's worth, such an amendment would not make the proposal less
appealing to me - the proposal's ambition was never "take away
fairness", but "take away [reality-superseded] bureaucracy" - something
which there seems to be little disagreement about, and which an updated
proposal would continue to do just as much as before.

Best regards,
Tore Anderson