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Discussion Summary

This policy proposal has been withdrawn

On 16 August 2016, Gert Doering summarized the Discussion Phase:

Dear APWG,

On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 03:58:47PM +0200, Marco Schmidt wrote:
> The Discussion Period for the policy proposal 2016-03, "Locking Down the Final /8 Policy" has been extended until 15 July 2016.

It took me quite a while, but I've re-read all the 247(!) e-mails that
have been sent on the topic of this policy proposal.

To sum it up, you as a community need to do MUCH better - this was a
huge waste of human life time and attention.  Many mails have been very
repetitive - as Sander already pointed out during the discussion, things
that have been answered and dismissed do not get more relevant because
they are repeated 10 times more.  Also, many mails have been very long,
without actually having a clear point - and whole subthreads of 30+
mails did not even refer to something in this policy proposal at all
but about "how can we do something else?".

The summary of positions that I could extract to the best of my abilities
(I spent almost a day on this) is attached below.  Only comments sent
after v2 was announced have been included, but I did read all of the
mails, including v1, to see if it would make a difference.


The proposer and a few other community members have done a very thorough
job actually addressing the concerns raised.

Purely counting numbers, we could have done with a few more voices of
support, though.


But anyway: this is not the final call on this proposal, but the end of
the discussion phase, and the PDP has the following to say on this:

 "At the end of the Discussion Phase, the proposer, with the agreement
  of the WG chair, decides whether the proposal will move to the next
  phase (Review Phase) or if it should be withdrawn from the RIPE
  PDP, depending on the feedback received."


I discussed this with Remco, and he wants to go ahead with the proposal,
taking into account suggestions made regarding textual improvements and
clarity of language.  The WG chairs agree, so this will now go into impact
analysis, and based on that, into review phase.

At the end of the review phase, we need to have consensus, though - which
doesn't mean "everyone has to agree", but at least we need to have *strong*
support, and of course have to address all opposing arguments.

So the WG chairs and the proposer have agreed that the proposal would
needs be withdrawn if there is no stronger support in the review phase.


Now you can argue about the process, if you want - but please read the
PDP document first:

 https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-642

before making statements what we can and should do.


We do not enter another round of discussion on the proposal itself now -
this will have to wait until Marco posts the impact analysis and announces
the start of the review phase, in a few weeks' time.

Gert Doering
        -- APWG chair

----------------------------
Summary on 2016-03 v2

Discussion period for v1 started: April 28, 2016
Discussion period for v2 started: June 15, 2016
Discussion period ended: July 15, 2016 (after extention)

Mails: 247 (only looking at those with "2016-03" in the Subject: line)

Only mails sent after June 16 (announcement of version 2.0) have been
considered - v1.0 was very clearly refused by a large number of voices.


Supportive voices

  William Waites - "the new version suits us just fine"

  Jan Ingvoldstad - "all the extremely bad opposing non-arguments kindof
                    have convinced me that 2016-03 is needed, and should
                    probably be implemented."

  Sebastian Wiesinger - "support, because /22 policy is there to enable ISP
                    business, not to make profit by selling it" (shortened)

  Ondrej.Caletka - "support, /22 [..] should be used to operate a network or
                    returned to the RIPE NCC"


Neutral / comments

  James Blessing

  Stefan Prager - "long mail, no clear statement wrt supporting 2016-03"
    (but claiming it's "inconceivable that this proposal is allowed to go
    forward", and starting a sub-thread about costs and voting)

    sub-thread with Sander Steffan, Denis Fondras, Remco van Mook,
    Radu-Adrian FEURDEAN,

  Jan Ingvoldstad
    "I do agree, though, with the repeated criticism about how M&A is handled"

  Peter Hessler
    "+1 on 'giving up on this and calling a ban on further changes to the IPv4 policy'"

  Randy Bush - "RIR stands for Rinse and Infinite Repeat"

  Peter Koch - "v2 is better, but more work on the text and references is
                needed to achieve clarity"

    (answered by Remco van Mook, and "noted")

  Tore Anderson - explicitely neutral on v2, "maybe not a good idea or
                  worth the trouble, but neutral/abstaining"

  Payam Poursaied - long post about unfairness in the old days between
                    some LIRs receiving more space than others, but no
                    clear statement wrt 2016-03
    (starting a sub-thread about IPv4, IPv6, regional impossibilities,
     all not related to 2016-03)



Questions

  James Blessing - question about "what sort of transfers do we need?"
                   (expressing neutrality on the proposal)

  Patrick Velder - "status: for assignments from ALOCATED FINAL?"
                   (answered by Sander Steffann)

  Ian.Dickinson - "what about pre-existing transfers?"


Opposition considered addressed

  Riccardo Gori - opposition on the basis that this takes away some legitimate
                  rights from LIRs currently having a /22 and numbering
                  customers from it

                  (considered addressed: if a LIR is *using* a /22, nothing
                  changes except the label on the inetnum)

                  and that it would put him at a market disadvantage if he
                  cannot potentially *sell* his business, including the /22,
                  in the future

                  (considered addressed by v2: M&A are permitted, only
                  transfers are not, so selling a business has no impact)

                  "this would create CLASS E unusable LIRs"
                  (considered out-of-scope - IPv4 is coming to an end, and
                  without a very restrictive last-/8 policy, these LIRs
                  would not have any IPv4 today - so don't complain about
                  the restrictions)

    sub-thread with Nick Hilliard, Sander Steffann (addressing the points),
    more Riccardo Gori, and more sub-threats, in a very repetitive way
    - main point is "disadvantages class-b LIRs", repeated many times,
    and answered many times by different persons


  Radu-Adrian FEURDEAN - objects to disallowing only transfers of
                   "after 14 September 2012" allocations, that it would
                   create "heavily disadvantaged members" and that the
                   intention to make IPv4 last as long as possible is
                   only "... meant to be the new equivalent of gold"
                   and that new LIRs are not forced to deploy IPv6

    answered in detail by Remco van Mook and Sebastian Wiesinger


  Yuri @ NTX NOC - "not needed, there is enough free v4"
                   "RIPE is not there to limit abilities of members to use v4"
                   "too complicated" (DB changes)

    first two addressed by Jan Ingvoldstadt, 3rd left unanswered

  Alexey Galaev - "because it limit in rights all new LIRs"
                  (should use IPv4 more effectively and stipulate using IPv6)
                  need "simple rules and right for all" (DB changes)

    answered by Jan Ingvoldstadt

  Arash Naderpour - "gives more advantage to the old LIRs, which is not fair"

  Stefan Prager - "because it *selectively* strips PA resource holders of
                   their rights ..." -> transfer restrictions should be
                   done equally to all PA blocks, or none
                   (repetitive "class-b LIR" argument)

  Daniel Suchy - "because it's unfair to new LIRs"

    answered by Jan Ingvoldstadt

  Nick Hilliard - "because it will create underground and unregistered
                   transfers of non-transferrable /22s"

    answered by Sander Steffan

  Elvis Velea - "opposing for the same reasons as Nick Hilliard"
    (which makes this "addressed by Sander's response to Nick")

    "retroactive" aspect answered by Tore Anderson, pointing to NCC SSA

  Storch Matei - agrees with Nick and Elvis, and because it's retroactive
    +1 from Patrick Velder

  Aleksey Bulgakov - opposes because "when you close down your business,
                     you can no longer sell your IP addresses"

    answered by Jim Reid, sub-thread about returning addresses

  Daniel Baeza "there is already 2015-01 to prevent abusing..."

  Radu Gheorghiu 'I do not want to restrict transfers of /22s from the
                  "last /18" (sic!)'


Opposition considered not directly addressed yet

  Jim Reid - "further tweaks are needed" - clear statement needed that
           the policy applies to ALL future allocations, not just 185/8

             (plus: make clearer that M&A are no longer disallowed by v2)

  Sascha Luck - not trusting M&A process to solve "real existant" business
                   cases properly, if transfer policy cannot be used anymore"

https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/address-policy-wg/2016-August/011700.html