[address-policy-wg] the post-mortem on 2008-08

Jim,

thank you for your reply.

On Jul 28, 2011, at 11:46, Jim Reid <jim at rfc1035.com> wrote:

> On 28 Jul 2011, at 09:35, Martin Millnert wrote:
> 
>> this message of yours explains for me that you have not really
>> understood why or what people are having issues with, with these
>> issues.
> 
> With respect Martin, you couldn't be more wrong. And anyway the next steps are not about what I might or might not understand or the issues raised in the last-minute objections to 2008-08. It's also not about "cheating the policy process" either. Nobody has suggested it was. It's about reconciling two (three?) mutually exclusive community decisions.

Fair enough. Your message had a bias towards "this needs to pass, obstacles go away!", that I may have misinterpreted then.

> We have a situation where the membership has authorised the NCC to develop an address certification system. This has been going on for years. It was the settled will of RIPE too. [Though that goes back to the days before the PDP existed.] We've all taken a punt that by the time this system was ready, there would be a consensus policy for it in place. 2008-08 is now dead. But the current mandate to the NCC is still in effect. A vote of the membership is needed to change that mandate. In my opinion, this is also the least bad way to proceed.

If the prototype development does not auto-expire when there is no supporting policy, that seems a bit like a flaw in the original design here, to me. Likewise, can the membership with a simple majority vote overrule the PDP on the matter? (or without the corresponding PDP, if the policy proposed then is different than 2008-08.) 
I'm not verse enough in RIPE NCC procedures to know this. It does seem strange that a simple majority vote could override a PDP decision, since the requirements on consensus in the PDP is pretty far from simple majority. That is what I mean would be cheating and would seriously undermine the authority of the policy.

It does then appear sensible to me that a new policy (which it is, Gert) still has to go through the PDP, and the AGM-mandated bullet point prototype development would at some time finish (working well enough qualifies), ending that mandate. And once that mandate has ended, a new mandate can still not put it into effect before consensus can be reached in a corresponding PDP.

> Please note I did not say what that decision should be. Again.
> 
> While you're right in theory to say we could start all over again and come up with a new address certification policy, I doubt it will work in practice. Positions seem too entrenched on all sides to find a compromise. I wonder too if consensus is now possible or if that can be reached in a reasonable amount of time. 2008-08 chugged along for 3 years and was apparently non-controversial.

I think Mr Blessing pointed out the core issue, yet unsolved. Until it is solved (my reading on the major difference of abusive risk tolerance), until there is a consensus, the default action is of course to not enact a new policy. 

Memories of the recent 2008-08 debate here ought to be fresh enough that if a new proposal comes through (say roughly in time for the next AGM), where these issues have been addressed, the debate need not restart from scratch.

Best regards,
Martin