[address-policy-wg] A comment on 2008-03 & 2007-09

Nick Hilliard wrote:
> David Conrad wrote:
>> Suppose we fast forward to ~2011 and you've just been rejected by 
>> RIPE-NCC because they have no more address space to hand out whereas 
>> AfriNIC and LACNIC both have (at least) a full /8.
>>
>> I'm curious: what do you think is going to happen?
> 
> As you note, the concept of "fairness" is a rather difficult notion. 
> Neither 2008-03 nor 2007-09 are going to stop the inevitable squabbling 
> that's going to happen: "It's not fair - they have a /8 and we don't 
> have any.  Waah!", or "I'm not going to share my /8 with you.  No, you 
> CAN'T HAVE IT!  Waah!  I'm going to tell on you!!  Daaaaaddddyyyyyyy!"


The more general observation is that there is no objective concept of
"fairness" in such a situation. So as we try and figure out what changes
(if any) should be made to the current distribution framework within the
time available the challenge is that we are never going to be able
to make the increasingly finite pool of remaining IPv4 addresses
comfortably encompass the continuing sequence of needs that are expressed
in address allocation requests. So if the aim of such tweaks is to
maximise "fairness" then I for one get lost pretty quickly in
understanding precisely what that means. And if the challenge is to
make the finite become infinite, then we are not exactly making good use
of what time remains.

It's not that I'm trying to belittle the various arguments here,
but what appears to me is that there is a certain shuffling of 
perceived future cost burden here - it appears that many folk see no 
advantage in early adoption of IPv6 and indeed perceive it as a penalty
and a cost, and are therefore wanting to secure their own future source
of IPv4 resources with the attendant consequence of forcing others into
a position of necessity to confront IPv6 deployment sooner rather than
later. This is being played out within each RIR (large vs small
allocation debates, for example) and across the RIRs with policy debates
such as these.

However, its not clear (to me) that there is any overwhemlingly "right"
answer here, nor is it clear (to me) that with more time to cogitate and
debate the issue that we'll come up with any such solution.

What is clearer (to me) is that what we are lacking here is a general sense
of confidence that we can make this transition operate efficiently,
effectively and safely, and part of the fuel for this debate over the last
/8 may be interpreted as a perceived reluctance to just get on with what
needs to be done in terms of network and service engineering. My suspicion
is that if we were more confident that we understand what transition really meant,
in terms of engineering, products, services, infrastructure, business, 
competitive positioning, lines of supply, etc, etc, then this entire 
policy discussion over what remains in the IPv4 pool would perhaps be of
lesser importance in the grander scheme of things Internet.


Geoff
(speaking entirely for myself, naturally!)