[ncc-services-wg] 2012-08 Discussion Period extended until 1 March 2013 (Publication of Sponsoring LIR for Independent Number Resources)

Peter, Erik,

The main reason for this policy proposal is to ensure transparency
throughout the RIR-LIR-End User chain - one of the core principles of the
RIPE community.   It's a core principle  because transparency creates the
conditions where trust can arise, and the RIPE community requires trust to
function.  Conversely, lack of transparency creates an environment where
people are left wondering, and this engenders mistrust.

We need trust because we are asking a bureaucracy (the RIPE NCC) to manage
a monopoly (number resources), and we know from overwhelming third party
experience that enforcement of transparency is one of the only ways to
ensure that a bureaucracy a) maintains the trust of its constituents and b)
is forced and is seen to act in a way which is consistent with its own
principals.

We have very good transparency on what address space is assigned or
allocated to whom (all of which provides information on existing
contractual relationships) and the RIPE community agrees that this is a
good thing.  Not only do we have it, but we also agree as a community that
this is valuable enough that we ask the RIPE NCC to conduct periodic audits
to ensure that the data is accurate - without which the transparency would
be useless.

We already have the precedent to tell us that transparency is the right
thing to do as a policy objective because we implicitly have this
information for every other resource allocation type.  This policy is an
acknowledgement of this position.

Nick