[address-policy-wg] status of 2011-02

Dear AP WG,

2011-02 has been a difficult one, and you have noticed the lack of
visible progress.  So let us explain, and propose a way forward.

The RIPE policy development process calls for "consensus" to make
policy from policy proposals.  Sometimes it's very clear if consensus
has been reached, and sometimes it's very clear that consensus has
NOT been reached.

When looking for consensus, we have to see if there are objections to the
proposal, and if those objections are justified - see the beginning of
section 2 of RIPE-500: 'In all phases of the RIPE PDP, suggestions 
for changes to the proposal and objections regarding the proposal must 
be justified with supporting arguments'. This is explicitly repeated in 
section 2.4.

In 2011-02, we have the case of "rough consensus with objections":

We have a number of people who spoke up in favour of the proposal, both
during the discussion/review phases and during Last Call.  A few persons 
had serious doubts about routing table growth and about PI in general, but 
still spoke in favour of the proposal, or abstained.

One person opposes the proposal, based on worries about highly accelerated 
and thus unsustainable routing table growth as a consequence of the 
proposal.

Given that some of the other RIRs already have less restrictive IPv6 PI 
policies, the available numbers on their PI assignments and the routes 
seen in the global IPv6 BGP table do not back this assumption.  Neither 
does the data from the global IPv4 BGP table, where the RIPE region has 
always had a very relaxed PI policy.

So the AP WG chairs have decided (after long discussion) that we do
have rough consensus on this policy proposal, and the remaining 
objections will be ignored.  Sander Steffann announced this at the 
APWG meeting - and one member of the WG spoke up at the microphone 
and disagreed with our conclusion.

So we spent some more weeks discussing and thinking about this, and
this is what we do now:

 - the WG chairs declare consensus

 - but the *working group* has the last word on any policy decision, 
   so we call for two weeks of "Last Call" on this decision


Procedure-wise, this is not about the *content* of the proposal now, and 
it's not useful to repeat the discussion about routing table growth etc.
now - we've heard all arguments.  What we need to decide now is whether
the voices from the community so far form "rough consensus" on the 
proposal, or not.

If you, the WG, decides that we do not have consensus, the policy proposal
goes back to "discussion phase", and the proposer will need to work with
those people that spoke up against the proposal to integrate their ideas,
and come up with a new version of the policy proposal that might then
reach consensus.

sincerly yours,

        Gert Doering & Sander Steffann, APWG chairs

-- 
have you enabled IPv6 on something today...?

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