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

On Mon, Aug 05, 2013 at 01:13:14PM +0200, Tore Anderson wrote:
>That's a feature, not a bug. :-) I'd much rather have LIRs that would
>engage in stockpiling and applying discriminatory practices in breach of
>competition laws *not* be able to defend themselves with «don't look at
>us, the RIPE NCC said it was OK!»

I think this discussion has come off the rails a wee bit. As I read the
proposal, it is (correct me if I'm wrong) simply about removing a phrase
-and associated bureaucratic process that causes work and delay for
operators- that has become meaningless in practice even before IPv4
depletion. All the "needs assessment" consists of is a check that the
application conforms somewhat to the letter of the policy (the
aforementioned "giggle test"). There is even a specialised skill in
creating assignment/allocation requests that will pass the "needs
assessment" with minimum hassle. (Full disclosure: This skill has paid
my bills a few times)

Since there is no point in keeping around a meaningless procedure, there
are, in my opinion, two options:

1) implement 2013-03 and give policy standing to a situation that
obtains anyway.

2) actually assess the needs of each application on its merits, as some
participants in this debate seem to be hinting at. 
This is something that not many network architects are qualified to do,
let alone RAs (with no offence to RAs intended).
Even assuming the NCC hired highly qualified networkers to perform these
assessments, the process would still be largely arbitrary (ask any two
networkers about the "right" way to build a network and you will get
three opinions), expensive and totally disproportional in effort,
especially considering that there is not that much IPv4 space left to
distribute in whichever way.

As far as hoarding and speculation is concerned, I'm not sure this is
such a massive problem. IPv4 space is a risky speculative investment,
as soon as IPv6 usage gains significant traction, it is likely to become
progressively worthless and the effort and cost to obtain large amounts
for speculation (remember, 1024 IPs per LIR) should make it
unattractive. [Caveat: IANAEconomist] 

For the avoidance of doubt, in case this wasn't clear from the above, I
hereby restate my support for 2013-03. 

rgds,
Sascha Luck