[address-policy-wg] 2012-04 New Policy Proposal (PI Assignments from the last /8)

On Mon, 7 May 2012, Nick Hilliard wrote:

>> Now, we have a number of new realities:
>>
>> - final /8 applies to all v4 address space when it kicks in, including
>> space that gets returned later;
>> - It also applies to v4 address space that has not been allocated or
>> assigned by RIPE NCC at that date;
>> - An additional 'special case' block was set aside for IXPs.
>
> The special case IXP block is neither here nor there.  A /16 makes no
> difference in the grand scheme of things.
>
> What's relevant here is that as a result of 2011-03, the "last /8" policy
> would be more appropriately called "the dregs" policy - the ipv4 policies
> which apply to the last /8 will become permanent fixtures applying to all
> future address space after depletion.  Perhaps they won't apply to a huge
> amount of address space, but there will be a constant and small turnover of
> address blocks reclaimed by the RIPE NCC for the foreseeable future.
>
> Turns out, this is a pretty fundamental change.  We had, as a community,
> created a last /8 policy because we believed that there was something
> special about the addresses in the bottom of the barrel.  Then we realised
> that there would be a permanent small trickle of addresses into this barrel
> and that there was really no such thing as the "last /8".

I totally agree. It is one thing to reserve a certain pool to be handled 
in a special way (like the /16 for IXPs) but to have a policy claiming new 
rules on all IPv4 space no matter what, does not make sense to me.

> In a roundabout sort of way, this policy floats the idea that the entire
> concept of the last /8 being special is slightly artificial, and that
> really they're not "special" addresses, they're just "addresses".  Same as
> all the other addresses we've assigned, allocated and used all along.
>
> The only difference we've really made is that we've narrowed the mouth of
> the toothpaste tube so that more people might be able to get a taste.
>
> Taking a slightly different viewpoint, 2012-04 makes the last /8 policy
> more similar to the "run out fairly" model, except that instead of limiting
> on the basis of expected use within X months, we're putting some hard
> limits in.

Yes.

Best Regards,

Daniel Stolpe

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Daniel Stolpe           Tel:  08 - 688 11 81                   stolpe at resilans.se
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