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

* Filiz Yilmaz

> Your discussion style preference does not suit me too well

The feeling is mutual.

> 1. You seem to be making a joke out of what I have said about
> demonstration.
> 
> In my opinion the RIR system is a lot more credible than what you
> seem to be portraying in your iMac/PC man example. RIRs did a very
> good job so far on a daily basis getting their guidance from somewhat
> not so black and white policies that their communities put in place.
> I think they still do a very good job.  Again, just my views...

I think the NCC is doing a good job too. I cannot speak for the the
other four RIRs, as I have no experience working with those.

> Clearly any legitimate need is very easy to demonstrate (as you
> demonstrated in your iMac/PC man example) and new LIRs will only have
> to do this ONCE, when they request their initial /22, so it is not a
> huge bureaucratic burden.

Agreed. As I've said repeatedly, changing the way initial /22s for new
LIRs are issued is not and has never been a goal of this proposal.

> And since this is so easy to do, why such simple demonstration cannot
> be kept there in the policy, so this proposal can finally reach
> consensus? Of course this just a suggestion, I do not know if others
> who opposed so far will be OK with this small alteration...

It could. Again, changing the way initial /22s for new LIRs are issued
is not something the proposal is aiming at. That's why the 2nd amendment
was added. And I would quite possible have been OK with this small
alteration or something like it, except for one ting: Timing.

So why not, you ask? Because it means another Impact Analysis, and
another review phase. In the last review phase, one of solutions you
advocated was «some kind of commitment from the requester that the space
is to be used on a network shortly and not to be sold to a 3rd party».
Lo and behold - now we have just that, confirmed by the NCC itself. But
all of a sudden that is not good enough for you any longer. So I'm
wondering, what will be the thing that is not good enough for you in the
3rd review phase? In the 4th? In the 5th?

Why you chose to say *nothing* when asked in the last review phase if
the currently proposed text was okay, why you chose to say *nothing*
when the WG was asked if there were remaining objections that was not
dealt with by the proposed amendments, why you chose to wait in silence
for well over a month when the NCC was hard at work making a new Impact
Analysis, only to bring up your misgivings about the new text *now*...it
is truly beyond my comprehension.

> 2.  With some "I* organisation" I meant any organisation that puts
> Internet in their mission statement and that would be happy to find
> all kinds of flaws in the RIR practices in accordance for their
> agenda. So far ITU had seemed to have criticism against RIRs, and
> RIRs defended their ground having solid practices. I think there
> might be more than just one, so I did not want to use a specific org
> name but used an umbrella term as "I* organisation". This concept was
> covered by Malcomn before so I did not see the need to elaborate in
> my previous mail. I hope it is clear now. My point was that if the
> RIPE NCC has a bit more information in regards to need with
> substance, this may help the RIR system better overall.

Indeed. The Impact Analysis for the previous version of the amendment
contained the following concern:

«The RIPE NCC has been under increased scrutiny from multiple parties
outside the technical community. In many cases, the RIPE NCC has
referred to the needs-based principle as evidence of the fairness and
transparency of allocations under the RIR system. If this principle were
to be eliminated, one of the main argumentative mainstays to defend
bottom-up industry self regulation would be gone. The RIPE NCC, as well
as the technical community, would have to prepare for increased outreach
and education efforts with participants in the Internet Governance debate.»

As I described in the summary mail I sent to the WG, alleviating this
concern was amongst of the goals of the amendments, and this was being
discussed with the NCC folks that helped work on them and confirmed by
other NCC reps as having this beneficial effect.

The result? The updated Impact Analysis no longer contains the above.

> 3. Agreed, RIPE NCC's job is to implement the Community's bottom-up
> policies in a neutral and transparent manner.
> 
> But I also believe (and I have expressed these before too) that the
> RIPE Community also has a responsibility to develop good policy and
> provide the RIPE NCC a good policy ground to base their procedures
> and implementations on.

Yes indeed. Ensuring that the resulting policy was crystal clear and
that there would be no confusions as to how it would be implemented into
the NCC's operational procedures is the exact reason why the amendments'
exact wording is the result of a *collaborative effort* between myself
and the RIPE NCC.

> 4. I am lost too, welcome to the club!
> 
> Let me explain where I am coming from:
> 
> Now you have the 3rd version out there and there seems to be still
> opposition to the removal of justification from what I can tell
> seeing McTim's and Sylvain's posts. So I thought this could be an
> easy remedy, adding a supporting sentence in front of the combo-box
> suggestion to have them agreed on your proposal too, and so I made
> the wording suggestion.
> 
> You are free to ignore this suggestion if you still feel too strong
> about not having it. In the meanwhile I will continue expressing my
> views and thoughts as I see fit on this list.

Your suggestion is not ignored, I've noted it well. But when it comes to
McTim's and Sylvain's posts, I have attempted to address the points
they've made in my responses to *their* posts. Time will tell if the
WG's consensus is that they have been adequately addressed or not.

> So lets assume everyone is doing their best and lets not target
> people individually and stick to what is being said and look at the
> content of the arguments. Otherwise this has the risk of being
> perceived as really getting out of proportion and beyond the scope of
> the proposal discussion.

Limiting the scope of the various sub-threads in the discussion of this
proposal, and keeping them on-topic, has been one of the hardest things
for me to accomplish. For example, keeping McTim and Sylvain's
misgivings about the proposal out of this one.

Best regards,
Tore Anderson