Input to the AC from the ASO workshop at RIPE 37

Dear Address Council,
As chair of the lir-wg, http://www.ripe.net/ripe/wg/lir/index.html  the RIPE
open forum where policy is made I am writing you this open letter. The
purpose of this note is to update you all on the input gathered from our
region. It is an open letter to work as a startingpoint for a broader
discussion on the same topics in all of the addressing community. This would
provide valuable input to the planned workshop to be held between the AC,
the RIRs and ICANN in Brisbane later this year. (This initiative was first
suggested in Budapest and later discussed at the AC phone conferences,
please refer to the minutes for more information:
http://www.aso.icann.org/docs/)

At RIPE 37 I called for a special workshop in order to bring those
especially interested in ASO matters together with the AC representatives
from our region for closer discussion. The announcement of the issues I
brought to the meeting can be found at
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail-archives/lir-wg/20000701-20001001/msg00150.htm
l Some 20-30 people showed up including Address Council members - Sabine
Jaume, Wilfried Woeber, and myself.

The following rather broad topics lies on the Address Councils table, and
will be discussed by the AC, ICANN and the RIRs at a physical AC meeting in
Brisbane just after the APNIC meeting in October. This effort is thus an
attempt to seek advice from the community before these discussions to
satisfy the basic requirements for openness and transparency.

1) What is global policy ?

There are several dimensions to this discussion:
- replace RFC 2050 with a ICANN Address policy document
- what is the distinction between regional and global policy
- do we understand and appreciate the differences between the regional
policies ?
- differences between v4 and v6 with respect to the last item
- what's the role/work mode of the AC ? to make the definite address policy,
or to work on issues as they show up
- were is the border between a service level contract and policy issues.
- are there other operating guidelines for the ICANN - IANA than the global
addressing policy ?

2) Revising the MOU
In the widest sense: are there things in the present MOU that needs more
work and needs to be changed ?

3) Addressing the essence of the ad Hoc committee, i.e. discussing how to
best address new addressing needs emerging for

4) How to promote ipv6 ?

5) Emerging RIRs
How to enable and support the emerging RIRs to establish regional policy
processes ?

The official minutes from this meeting will be posted shortly, but a brief
summary is as follows:

* The distinction between regional and global address policy needs to be set

* The AC needs to understand and appreciate the differences between each of
the regional policies

* There is interest in harmonizing the core procedures and requirements of
the various Regional Registries with regard to LIRs applying for and
obtaining IP address space.

* The Address Council should proactive set the agenda for global policy
development.

* IPv4 address exhaustion - the AC should work with the RIRs and the ICANN
IANA to produce comparable statistics on address space consumption. Care
should be taken to first produce solid data, then diagnose, and finally seek
the proper cure.

*  The AC should not see it as its role to promote IPv4 over IPv6 or vice
versa.

* The AC should look further into addressing the concerns that initiated the
ad Hoc committee

* It was also expressed satisfaction with the ASO annual meeting in Budapest
and further interest inntrest in more opportunities to meet and discuss
global addressing policy with the address council. It was suggested to me
publicly and privately that the AC sould seek to hold an open meeting in
conjunction with the ICANN annual meeting later this year. The agenda of
such a meeting should consist of not only reporting from the work done by
the AC and the ASO but also provide open discussions on addressing issues
including the ad Hoc group issues, global policy development and several
legacy addressing issues. A well prepared meeting with invited speakers as
well as a discusion panel is likely to bring more insight into the issues in
front of us. Such a meeting would in my opinion serve as an important step
in the ongoing process of  seeking global consensus. We have started the
discussion regionally at RIPE 37, the ARIN policy meeting and the upcoming
APNIC policy meeting. Thereafter the AC, RIRs and ICANN will work further on
some issues, present and discuss them at the ICANN annual meeting before
seeking final consensus at all the regions mailinglists and upcoming policy
meetings.

I would by this ask the chair of the address council to bring these
suggestions to the address councils next phone conference.

Sincerely,

Hans Petter Holen

RIPE lir-wg Chair,
the open forum where policy is made.