[address-policy-wg] 2013-03 New Policy Proposal (No Need - Post-Depletion Reality Adjustment and Cleanup)

* Gert Doering

> Actually, for *PA*, they have always been "recommended" - mostly to
> ensure that customers are aware that they can't normally take the PA 
> space away to other providers.
> 
> For PI and AS numbers, they are mandatory since 2007-01.
> 
> So changing this to "mandatory" for PA space would, in my reading, be a
> change of policy (... and opens up a new opportunity for bureaucracy,
> as in "being required to display the contract to the RIPE NCC upon an
> audit" or such).

Hi Gert,

The currently active policy document (ripe-582) says:

«LIRs must make it clear to End Users which type of address space is
assigned. Clear contractual arrangements are recommended and are
mandatory for PA space.»

While I'm not a native English speaker, I have severe difficulties
interpreting the above statement as anything but:

* PA space     -> clear contractual arrangements are *mandatory*.
* Non-PA space -> clear contractual arrangements are *recommended*.

This is from a section titled «PA vs. PI Address Space», so the way I
interpret it it, you may substitute "Non-PA" with "PI" above, ergo we're
left with:

* PA space -> clear contractual arrangements are *mandatory*.
* PI space -> clear contractual arrangements are *recommended*.

Clearly, the last point is in conflict with 2007-01, but I'd assume that
is just an oversight - 2007-01 should have updated it, but did not.
Assuming 2007-01 takes precedence, then, the actual policy is:

* PA space -> clear contractual arrangements are *mandatory*.
* PI space -> clear contractual arrangements are *mandatory*.

I hope you can follow my interpretation, or if not at least can point
out where my mistake is.

It it definitively *not* a goal of 2013-03 to add any contractual
requirements where there was previously none, but it seems to me that in
the PA case, they are already there. In this regard it we might consider
it a goal of 2013-03 to not change anything, one way or the other
(because that'd be "scope creep" which I really want to avoid).

Tore