From ingrid at ripe.net Tue Mar 3 18:03:37 2009 From: ingrid at ripe.net (Ingrid Wijte) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:03:37 +0100 Subject: [address-policy-wg] New Documents available In-Reply-To: <49AD2C32.7060901@ripe.net> References: <49AD2C32.7060901@ripe.net> Message-ID: <49AD62E9.2080809@ripe.net> Dear Colleagues We have published several new RIPE Documents. The publication of these documents follows the implementation by the RIPE NCC of phase one of the previously accepted policy proposal 2007-01: "Direct Internet Resource Assignments to End Users from the RIPE NCC". Policy Documents: - ripe-449, "IPv4 Address Allocation and Assignment Policies for the RIPE NCC Service Region". It replaces ripe-441, "IPv4 Address Allocation and Assignment Policies for the RIPE NCC Service Region". - ripe-448, "Autonomous System (AS) Number Assignment Policies and Procedures". It replaces ripe-389, "Autonomous System (AS) Number Assignment Policies and Procedures". - ripe-450, "IPv6 Address Allocation and Assignment Policy". It replaces ripe-421, "IPv6 Address Allocation and Assignment Policy". - ripe-451, "IPv6 Address Space Policy for Internet Exchange Points". It replaces ripe-256, "IPv6 Address Space Policy for Internet Exchange Points". - ripe-452, "Contractual Requirements for Provider Independent Resource Holders in the RIPE NCC Service Region". This is a new RIPE Document. RIPE NCC Organisational Document: - ripe-462, "RIPE NCC End User Assignment Agreement". This is a new RIPE Document. Request Forms and Supporting Notes: - ripe-453, "Provider Independent (PI) Assignment Request Form". It replaces ripe-356, "Provider Independent (PI) Assignment Request Form". - ripe-454, "Supporting Notes for the Provider Independent (PI) Assignment Request Form". It replaces ripe-357, "Supporting Notes for the Provider Independent (PI)Assignment Request Form". - ripe-456, "AS Number Request Form". It replaces ripe-444, "AS Number Request Form". - ripe-457, "Supporting Notes for the Autonomous System Number Request Form". It replaces ripe-445, "Supporting Notes for the Autonomous System Number Request Form". - ripe-458, "Anycast Assignment Request Form". It replaces ripe-390, "Anycast Assignment Request Form". - ripe-459, "Supporting Notes for the Anycast Assignment Request Form". It replaces ripe-391, "Supporting Notes for the Anycast Assignment Request Form". - ripe-460, "IPv6 Internet Exchange Points Assignment Request Form". It replaces ripe-371, "IPv6 Internet Exchange Points Assignment Request Form" - ripe-461, "Supporting Notes for the IPv6 Internet Exchange Points Assignment Request Form". It replaces ripe-372, "Supporting Notes for the IPv6 Internet Exchange Points Assignment Request Form". The new documents are available at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/titletoc.html Recently Published section available at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/recent.html Best regards Ingrid Wijte IP Resource Analyst RIPE NCC From florpare at ripe.net Tue Mar 10 09:59:07 2009 From: florpare at ripe.net (florpare at ripe.net) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:59:07 +0100 (CET) Subject: [address-policy-wg] New AS Number block allocated to the RIPE NCC Message-ID: <50999.77.248.25.222.1236675547.squirrel@rhesus.ripe.net> Dear Colleagues, The RIPE NCC received the AS Number Block 49152 - 52223 from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) in March 2009. You may want to update your records accordingly. Regards, Flor de Maria Paredes Mattos Registration Services Manager RIPE NCC From shane at time-travellers.org Tue Mar 10 10:52:51 2009 From: shane at time-travellers.org (Shane Kerr) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:52:51 +0100 Subject: [address-policy-wg] New AS Number block allocated to the RIPE NCC In-Reply-To: <50999.77.248.25.222.1236675547.squirrel@rhesus.ripe.net> References: <50999.77.248.25.222.1236675547.squirrel@rhesus.ripe.net> Message-ID: <1236678771.1494.18.camel@shane-macbook-pro> Flor, On Tue, 2009-03-10 at 09:59 +0100, florpare at ripe.net wrote: > The RIPE NCC received the AS Number Block 49152 - 52223 from the > Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) in March 2009. > > You may want to update your records accordingly. Weird... I thought the NCC was only allocating 32-bit AS numbers now. Are there still a lot of 16-bit AS number assignments? -- Shane From rhe at nosc.ja.net Tue Mar 10 11:00:22 2009 From: rhe at nosc.ja.net (Rob Evans) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:00:22 +0000 Subject: [address-policy-wg] New AS Number block allocated to the RIPE NCC In-Reply-To: <1236678771.1494.18.camel@shane-macbook-pro> References: <50999.77.248.25.222.1236675547.squirrel@rhesus.ripe.net> <1236678771.1494.18.camel@shane-macbook-pro> Message-ID: <49B63A36.8090205@nosc.ja.net> > Weird... I thought the NCC was only allocating 32-bit AS numbers now. Globally the default is 32 bit, 16 bit on request. 32 bit only from next January. Statistics presented at the APNIC meeting a couple of weeks ago suggest that most of the actual assignments this year have fallen into the "on request" bucket. Reasons why are left as an exercise for the reader (or discussion on one of these lists). :) Rob From filiz at ripe.net Thu Mar 12 10:44:54 2009 From: filiz at ripe.net (Filiz Yilmaz) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:44:54 +0100 Subject: [address-policy-wg] Global Policy for the Allocation of the Remaining IPv4 Address Space Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, Proposal 2008-03, "Global Policy for the Allocation of the Remaining IPv4 Address Space", was accepted by the RIPE community in September 2008. This proposal has since reached consensus in all other RIR regions and it is now also ratified by ICANN on 6 March 2009. You can find the policy documented at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-436.html Kind regards, Filiz Yilmaz Policy Development Officer RIPE NCC From filiz at ripe.net Mon Mar 16 10:04:02 2009 From: filiz at ripe.net (Filiz Yilmaz) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:04:02 +0100 Subject: [address-policy-wg] 2006-01 Last Call for Comments (Provider Independent (PI) IPv6 Assignments for End User Organisations) Message-ID: <200C8BA7-8798-47F4-A741-0A633B3E4040@ripe.net> PDP Number: 2006-01 Provider Independent (PI) IPv6 Assignments for End User Organisations Dear Colleagues, The proposal described in 2006-01 is now at its Concluding Phase. You can find the full proposal at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/proposals/2006-01.html Please e-mail any final comments about this proposal to address-policy-wg at ripe.net before 13 April 2009. Regards, Filiz Yilmaz Policy Development Officer RIPE NCC From filiz at ripe.net Mon Mar 16 15:37:38 2009 From: filiz at ripe.net (Filiz Yilmaz) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:37:38 +0100 Subject: [address-policy-wg] Autonomous System (AS) Number Assignment Policies and Procedures Message-ID: <9A531F8B-5BCD-408E-A67E-E76BBC129DAD@ripe.net> Dear Colleagues, As previously announced, a draft RIPE Policy Document, "Autonomous System (AS) Number Assignment Policies and Procedures", was published, removing all reference to the previous AS Number registration format (ASDOT). This update was proposed following the publication of RFC5396: ftp://ftp.ripe.net/rfc/rfc5396.txt This review period for this draft document has now concluded, and the updated RIPE Policy Document, "Autonomous System (AS) Number Assignment Policies and Procedures", has been published. You can find this document at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-463.html http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/asn-assignment.html Thank you for your input. Kind regards, Filiz Yilmaz Policy Development Officer RIPE NCC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From president at ukraine.su Thu Mar 19 17:42:59 2009 From: president at ukraine.su (Max Tulyev) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:42:59 +0200 Subject: [address-policy-wg] Policy? Message-ID: <49C27613.1090407@ukraine.su> Hi all, imagine there is a company having huge allocation/assignment. Some happens (i.e. crisis), they lost a significant number of clients, so they have a lot of free IP space. Is there any policy ENFORCES this company to return unused address space? -- WBR, Max Tulyev (MT6561-RIPE, 2:463/253 at FIDO) From gert at space.net Thu Mar 19 17:49:41 2009 From: gert at space.net (Gert Doering) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:49:41 +0100 Subject: [address-policy-wg] Policy? In-Reply-To: <49C27613.1090407@ukraine.su> References: <49C27613.1090407@ukraine.su> Message-ID: <20090319164941.GG61514@Space.Net> Hi, On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 06:42:59PM +0200, Max Tulyev wrote: > imagine there is a company having huge allocation/assignment. Some > happens (i.e. crisis), they lost a significant number of clients, so > they have a lot of free IP space. Is there any policy ENFORCES this > company to return unused address space? Allocation or assignment? Policies are somewhat different for these two cases. Gert Doering -- NetMaster -- Total number of prefixes smaller than registry allocations: 128645 SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) Tel: +49 (89) 32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279 From president at ukraine.su Thu Mar 19 17:59:47 2009 From: president at ukraine.su (Max Tulyev) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:59:47 +0200 Subject: [address-policy-wg] Policy? In-Reply-To: <20090319164941.GG61514@Space.Net> References: <49C27613.1090407@ukraine.su> <20090319164941.GG61514@Space.Net> Message-ID: <49C27A03.6040700@ukraine.su> Actually, both cases are interesting. Gert Doering wrote: > Hi, > > On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 06:42:59PM +0200, Max Tulyev wrote: >> imagine there is a company having huge allocation/assignment. Some >> happens (i.e. crisis), they lost a significant number of clients, so >> they have a lot of free IP space. Is there any policy ENFORCES this >> company to return unused address space? > > Allocation or assignment? Policies are somewhat different for these > two cases. > > Gert Doering > -- NetMaster -- WBR, Max Tulyev (MT6561-RIPE, 2:463/253 at FIDO) From michael.dillon at bt.com Fri Mar 20 08:50:23 2009 From: michael.dillon at bt.com (michael.dillon at bt.com) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:50:23 -0000 Subject: [address-policy-wg] Policy? In-Reply-To: <49C27613.1090407@ukraine.su> Message-ID: <28E139F46D45AF49A31950F88C4974582EFFB5@E03MVZ2-UKDY.domain1.systemhost.net> > imagine there is a company having huge allocation/assignment. > Some happens (i.e. crisis), they lost a significant number of > clients, so they have a lot of free IP space. Is there any > policy ENFORCES this company to return unused address space? No. Policies do not enforce anything. Policies are like laws. They are just words on paper. Enforcement has to come from somewhere else. If you read RIPE policies carefully, you will see that you do not have to have a technical requirement today for every address that you receive from RIPE. If RIPE is willing to give addresses to some organizations which will not be used for many months, or years, then it is difficult to force any organization to return addresses when they experience a temporary downturn. Also, remember that most RIPE members will reserve unused addresses for several months after disconnecting a customer, before they assign those to other customers. In the case of a dispute between RIPE and a member organization, you cannot expect quick results. There will almost always be a language barrier between RIPE and the member organization. The multilingual hostmasters are probably not the right people to be in the middle of a dispute. There are subtle difference in translating a lot of the terminology that we use, for instance assign and allocate have almost identical meanings in English, so I don't expect translated terms to make any sense outside of the RIPE context. Let's face it, we are running out of IPv4 and the special efforts that RIPE has made in the past year or so, has only caused this runout date to become sooner for all but the smallest organizations. IPv6 is the only way out of this mess. Attempting to enforce some sort of efficient-use policy for IPv4 is wasted effort. --Michael Dillon From filiz at ripe.net Tue Mar 24 16:41:16 2009 From: filiz at ripe.net (Filiz Yilmaz) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:41:16 +0100 Subject: [address-policy-wg] 2009-02 New Policy Proposal (Allocating Resources to the RIPE NCC) Message-ID: <20090324154116.ADB4D2F583@herring.ripe.net> PDP Number: 2009-02 Allocating Resources to the RIPE NCC Dear Colleagues, A new RIPE Policy Proposal has been made and is now available for discussion. You can find the full proposal at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/proposals/2009-02.html We encourage you to review this proposal and send your comments to before 21 April 2009. Regards Filiz Yilmaz Policy Development Officer RIPE NCC From remco.vanmook at eu.equinix.com Tue Mar 24 16:45:42 2009 From: remco.vanmook at eu.equinix.com (Remco van Mook) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:45:42 +0100 Subject: [address-policy-wg] 2009-02 New Policy Proposal (Allocating Resources to the RIPE NCC) In-Reply-To: <20090324154116.ADB4D2F583@herring.ripe.net> Message-ID: On the website: the company I work for is Equinix, not Equinox :-) On 24-03-09 16:41, "Filiz Yilmaz" wrote: > PDP Number: 2009-02 > Allocating Resources to the RIPE NCC > > Dear Colleagues, > > A new RIPE Policy Proposal has been made and is now available for > discussion. > > You can find the full proposal at: > > http://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/proposals/2009-02.html > > We encourage you to review this proposal and send your comments to > before 21 April 2009. > > Regards > > Filiz Yilmaz > Policy Development Officer > RIPE NCC > > This email is from Equinix Europe Limited or one of its associated/subsidiary companies. This email, and any files transmitted with it, contains information which is confidential, may be legally privileged and is solely for the use of the intended recipient. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender and delete this email immediately. Equinix Europe Limited. Registered Office: Quadrant House, Floor 6, 17 Thomas More Street, Thomas More Square, London E1W 1YW. Registered in England and Wales No. 6293383. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andy at nosignal.org Tue Mar 24 18:22:44 2009 From: andy at nosignal.org (Andy Davidson) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:22:44 +0000 Subject: [address-policy-wg] 2009-02 New Policy Proposal (Allocating Resources to the RIPE NCC) In-Reply-To: <20090324154116.ADB4D2F583@herring.ripe.net> References: <20090324154116.ADB4D2F583@herring.ripe.net> Message-ID: On 24 Mar 2009, at 15:41, Filiz Yilmaz wrote: > A new RIPE Policy Proposal has been made and is now available for > discussion. > > You can find the full proposal at: > > http://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/proposals/2009-02.html I like this better than the previous suggestion which created a new assignment type 'Assigned LIR'. Since policies like 2007-01 require a contract to be held between the NCC and the requesting party, who are the parties of the contract for resources approved following the 2009-02 procedure? Kind regards, Andy Davidson. From Remco.vanMook at eu.equinix.com Wed Mar 25 09:41:19 2009 From: Remco.vanMook at eu.equinix.com (Remco van Mook) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:41:19 +0100 Subject: [address-policy-wg] 2009-02 New Policy Proposal (Allocating Resources to the RIPE NCC) References: <20090324154116.ADB4D2F583@herring.ripe.net> Message-ID: <2E61C47A190CA44ABFCF23147E57E4BC0109B6A3@NLEN1EX1.eu.win.equinix.com> Hi Andy, There won't be a contract because it's an impossibility - that's one of the main rationales behind the proposal. We could have the NCC sign twice but that's a bit ridiculous and won't be a legal contract anyway. Best, Remco -----Original Message----- From: address-policy-wg-admin at ripe.net [mailto:address-policy-wg-admin at ripe.net] On Behalf Of Andy Davidson Sent: dinsdag 24 maart 2009 18:23 To: address-policy-wg at ripe.net Subject: Re: [address-policy-wg] 2009-02 New Policy Proposal (Allocating Resources to the RIPE NCC) On 24 Mar 2009, at 15:41, Filiz Yilmaz wrote: > A new RIPE Policy Proposal has been made and is now available for > discussion. > > You can find the full proposal at: > > http://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/proposals/2009-02.html I like this better than the previous suggestion which created a new assignment type 'Assigned LIR'. Since policies like 2007-01 require a contract to be held between the NCC and the requesting party, who are the parties of the contract for resources approved following the 2009-02 procedure? Kind regards, Andy Davidson. This email is from Equinix Europe Limited or one of its associated/subsidiary companies. This email, and any files transmitted with it, contains information which is confidential, may be legally privileged and is solely for the use of the intended recipient. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender and delete this email immediately. Equinix Europe Limited. Registered Office: Quadrant House, Floor 6, 17 Thomas More Street, Thomas More Square, London E1W 1YW. Registered in England and Wales No. 6293383. From filiz at ripe.net Thu Mar 26 14:05:19 2009 From: filiz at ripe.net (Filiz Yilmaz) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:05:19 +0100 Subject: [address-policy-wg] 2008-05 New Draft Documents Published (Anycasting Assignments for TLDs and Tier 0/1 ENUM) Message-ID: <20090326130519.868942F583@herring.ripe.net> PDP Number: 2008-05 Anycasting Assignments for TLDs and Tier 0/1 ENUM Dear Colleagues The text of the policy proposal 2008-05, "Anycasting Assignments for TLDs and Tier 0/1 ENUM" has been revised. We have published the new version (version 3.0) today. The draft documents for the proposal have also been published, as well as the impact analysis that was conducted for this proposal. You can find the full proposal at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/proposals/2008-05.html and the draft documents at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/draft-documents/ripe-449-draft2008-05.html http://www.ripe.net/ripe/draft-documents/ripe-450-draft2008-05.html We encourage you to read the draft documents and send any comments to address-policy-wg at ripe.net before 23 April 2009. Regards Filiz Yilmaz Policy Development Officer RIPE NCC From nick at inex.ie Tue Mar 31 12:19:39 2009 From: nick at inex.ie (Nick Hilliard) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:19:39 +0100 Subject: [address-policy-wg] 2009-02 New Policy Proposal (Allocating Resources to the RIPE NCC) In-Reply-To: <2E61C47A190CA44ABFCF23147E57E4BC0109B6A3@NLEN1EX1.eu.win.equinix.com> References: <20090324154116.ADB4D2F583@herring.ripe.net> <2E61C47A190CA44ABFCF23147E57E4BC0109B6A3@NLEN1EX1.eu.win.equinix.com> Message-ID: <49D1EE3B.90404@inex.ie> On 25/03/2009 08:41, Remco van Mook wrote: > There won't be a contract because it's an impossibility - that's one of > the main rationales behind the proposal. We could have the NCC sign > twice but that's a bit ridiculous and won't be a legal contract anyway. A couple of comments here: 1. It may be a good idea to explicitly note in the proposal that the RIPE NCC is formally exempted from signing any of the normal contracts required for number resource assignment / allocation. 2. I don't want to sound like the language fascist here, but as the proposal deals with both assignment and allocation of resources (to use the RIPE NCC terminology), it might be a good idea to use the two terms in the policy proposal. Currently the word "allocation" is used, but if the NCC is going to apply for a PI ipv6 /48, then that's an assignment. Similarly for ASNs. 3. I have a slight preference for using the Pool of Arbiters instead of the WG Chairs for the approval mechanism, purely on the grounds that smaller committees are better than bigger ones. I don't have a problem with Remco being proposer of this policy change and also being on the pool of arbiters. Just out of interest, the pool of arbiters is described here: http://www.ripe.net/membership/arbitration.html 4. Regarding the function of the approval group, there are two important requirements for RIPE NCC number resource assignment / allocation process: a. consistency with the assignment / allocation guidelines b. process transparency As it stands, the proposed process delegates the entire process of number resource approval to the approval group, with no obligation to explain or publicise their decision. I just wonder if it wouldn't be better to have a process like this: 4.1: assignment / allocation request received and processed by RIPE NCC hostmasters who will give a formal written opinion on whether the request is consistent with current assignment / allocation guidelines 4.2: this opinion is evaluated by [pool of arbiters / WG chairs] who are entitled to approve the request only if the hostmaster team find that the request is consistent with current rules. 4.3: either way, the request, the hostmaster recommendation and the reasoning of [pool of arbiters / WG chairs] is published. 4.4: if both hostmasters and [pool of arbiters / WG chairs] decline request, then petition can be made to RIPE Plenary. There are a couple of reasons for this alternative proposal. First, it's the purpose of the RIPE NCC hostmaster team to evaluate whether number requests are consistent with the rules. The [pool of arbiters / WG chairs] are not hostmasters. Secondly, the [pool of arbiters / WG chairs] should not necessarily be given sole authority to decide whether a number request is consistent with current RIPE rules; 4.2 above implies that if the RIPE NCC hostmaster team believes that a request is not justified, the [pool of arbiters / WG chairs] have no authority to override that decision. Thirdly, the reasoning and decision of the [pool of arbiters / WG chairs] should be published so that this mystical ideal of transparency is achieved. Nick From Niall.oReilly at ucd.ie Tue Mar 31 13:46:29 2009 From: Niall.oReilly at ucd.ie (Niall O'Reilly) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:46:29 +0100 Subject: [address-policy-wg] 2009-02 New Policy Proposal (Allocating Resources to the RIPE NCC) In-Reply-To: <49D1EE3B.90404@inex.ie> References: <20090324154116.ADB4D2F583@herring.ripe.net> <2E61C47A190CA44ABFCF23147E57E4BC0109B6A3@NLEN1EX1.eu.win.equinix.com> <49D1EE3B.90404@inex.ie> Message-ID: <1238499989.6055.16.camel@d410-heron> On Tue, 2009-03-31 at 11:19 +0100, Nick Hilliard wrote: > I just wonder if it wouldn't be better to have a > process like this: [See Nick's earlier post for details] I'm in favour of this approach. Niall O'Reilly with my WG-Chair hat on. From davidm at futureinquestion.net Tue Mar 31 15:05:40 2009 From: davidm at futureinquestion.net (David Monosov) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:05:40 +0200 Subject: [address-policy-wg] 2009-02 New Policy Proposal (Allocating Resources to the RIPE NCC) In-Reply-To: <49D1EE3B.90404@inex.ie> References: <20090324154116.ADB4D2F583@herring.ripe.net> <2E61C47A190CA44ABFCF23147E57E4BC0109B6A3@NLEN1EX1.eu.win.equinix.com> <49D1EE3B.90404@inex.ie> Message-ID: <49D21524.8050209@futureinquestion.net> Dear Nick, Remco, address-policy-wg, The suggested changes Nick put forward appear sensible, and should result in a lasting framework with a less irregular process. By keeping the hostmasters in the loop, the requirement "For the purpose of evaluating, the request will be treated as if it were filed by a regular LIR." is met by the most competent authority. This, in turn, allows the Pool of Arbiters to concentrate on the merit of a request rather than policy technicalities. Therefore, I support these changes. -- Respectfully yours, David Monosov Nick Hilliard wrote: > On 25/03/2009 08:41, Remco van Mook wrote: >> There won't be a contract because it's an impossibility - that's one of >> the main rationales behind the proposal. We could have the NCC sign >> twice but that's a bit ridiculous and won't be a legal contract anyway. > > A couple of comments here: > > 1. It may be a good idea to explicitly note in the proposal that the > RIPE NCC is formally exempted from signing any of the normal contracts > required for number resource assignment / allocation. > > 2. I don't want to sound like the language fascist here, but as the > proposal deals with both assignment and allocation of resources (to use > the RIPE NCC terminology), it might be a good idea to use the two terms > in the policy proposal. Currently the word "allocation" is used, but if > the NCC is going to apply for a PI ipv6 /48, then that's an assignment. > Similarly for ASNs. > > 3. I have a slight preference for using the Pool of Arbiters instead of > the WG Chairs for the approval mechanism, purely on the grounds that > smaller committees are better than bigger ones. I don't have a problem > with Remco being proposer of this policy change and also being on the > pool of arbiters. Just out of interest, the pool of arbiters is > described here: > > http://www.ripe.net/membership/arbitration.html > > 4. Regarding the function of the approval group, there are two important > requirements for RIPE NCC number resource assignment / allocation process: > > a. consistency with the assignment / allocation guidelines > b. process transparency > > As it stands, the proposed process delegates the entire process of > number resource approval to the approval group, with no obligation to > explain or publicise their decision. I just wonder if it wouldn't be > better to have a process like this: > > 4.1: assignment / allocation request received and processed by RIPE > NCC hostmasters who will give a formal written opinion on whether the > request is consistent with current assignment / allocation guidelines > 4.2: this opinion is evaluated by [pool of arbiters / WG chairs] who > are entitled to approve the request only if the hostmaster team find > that the request is consistent with current rules. > 4.3: either way, the request, the hostmaster recommendation and the > reasoning of [pool of arbiters / WG chairs] is published. > 4.4: if both hostmasters and [pool of arbiters / WG chairs] decline > request, then petition can be made to RIPE Plenary. > > There are a couple of reasons for this alternative proposal. First, > it's the purpose of the RIPE NCC hostmaster team to evaluate whether > number requests are consistent with the rules. The [pool of arbiters / > WG chairs] are not hostmasters. Secondly, the [pool of arbiters / WG > chairs] should not necessarily be given sole authority to decide whether > a number request is consistent with current RIPE rules; 4.2 above > implies that if the RIPE NCC hostmaster team believes that a request is > not justified, the [pool of arbiters / WG chairs] have no authority to > override that decision. Thirdly, the reasoning and decision of the [pool > of arbiters / WG chairs] should be published so that this mystical ideal > of transparency is achieved. > > Nick >