[address-policy-wg] 2016-03 New Policy Proposal (Locking Down the Final /8 Policy)

* Radu-Adrian FEURDEAN

> As you may know, the "multiple LIRs" is for the moment least expensive
> way of getting around the "one /22" restriction. Combined withe the
> removal of "need checking", this very much looks like selling /22 to
> anybody willing to pay a sign-up and at least one year of membership.

I've attempted to explain to you before[1] why this line of reasoning
makes no sense, but I'll try again in case you missed it the first
time around.

The RIPE NCC has always been automatically handing out minimum-sized
initial IPv4 allocations to new members. This you can see already in
ripe-136, which dates all the way back from 1996:

«The first allocation will be made automatically by the RIPE NCC,
generally upon receipt of the first assignment request from the local
IR. Because there is no information about the rate at which a new IR
will make address assignments, the size of the first allocation is
always a /19 (8092 addresses).»

"Need checking" was only used whenever the new LIR requested an initial
allocation *larger* than the minimum allocation size, something the
policy was later updated to allow for. (Figuring out exactly when that
happened is an exercise left for the reader.)

When the «last /8» policy was implemented, the possibility to request
larger-than-minimal initial allocations was removed, so the procedure
for receiving an initial allocation essentially reverted back to what
it was in 1996: the initial allocation is a fixed size prefix that is
given automatically to any new LIR requesting it.

In short: today's practise of automatically giving minimum-sized
allocation to new LIRs is something the RIPE NCC has been doing since
its inception, and it's all in accordance with the RIPE community's
policies. If you're going to continue to accuse the NCC of «selling
IPv4», then you'll have to claim that that's something they've *always*
done, and furthermore that they're currently «selling IPv6» in exactly
the same way.

Or, even better, you can stop making this nonsensical accusation.

Tore

[1] https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/address-policy-wg/2016-May/011215.html