[address-policy-wg] 2013-03 New Draft Document and Impact Analysis Published (No Need - Post-Depletion Reality Adjustment and Clean up)

On 01/08/2013 07:38, Tore Anderson wrote:
> * Malcolm Hutty
> 
>>
>> However this argument is fallacious. The Conservation policy, even as
>> stated, expresses *two separate* policy objectives: 'fair distribution',
>> and maximising the lifetime of the public address pool. Depletion means
>> that reality has superseded the second objective, but not necessarily
>> the first.
> 
> Hi again Malcom,
> 
> Having slept on it, I have a suggestion that hopefully will make us
> reach common ground. How about, instead of removing the old Conservation
> goal completely, we rewrite it as follows:
> 
> «Fair use: Public IPv4 address space must be fairly distributed to the
> End Users operating networks.»
> 
> This would only remove the second "reality-superseded" objective, but
> not the first. It would also continue to provide the philosophical
> foundation on which we may build "enforcement" policies in the future,
> so we certainly would not be "closing the door" on any such discussion.
> 
> Furthermore, it might even help the NCC in their political/government
> interactions, as they can truthfully maintain that their goal with
> regards to IPv4 is still to provide for fair distribution and fair use.
> 
> Would such an amendment make the proposal more appealing to you, at
> least enough to make reach the "I can live with this" point? (This
> question goes for the others who have noted their reservation towards
> the proposal too, feel free to chime in!)

Tore,

Firstly, thank you for being so willing to engage with a view to meeting
objections, rather than just defending your proposal. I hope my answer
meets you in the same spirit.

That amendment would *definitely* make the proposal more appealing to
me. To my mind, this moves us from "2013-03 looks bad" to "2013-03 seems
broadly OK but needs thought to see whether a little further
wordsmithing is needed". Which is, I think you'll agree, major progress.

How long do we reasonably have to think about that wording? I realise
we're at a late stage, but I would welcome introducing more eyeballs to
this problem.

In particular, I'm not sure I like limiting fairness to End Users, as
you have done. Referring back to your other comments on fairness, to the
effect that "fairness" has already been abandoned in the last /8 for
NCC->LIR, I don't necessarily agree or think it should be presented like
that.

On the contrary, we could assert the fairness of the current policy,
something like:

"In order to ensure fair access to IPv4 address space, and in particular
that as many parties have access to IPv4 address space as possible, no
LIR shall be assigned more than 1024 addresses from the last /8. For the
purpose of efficiency, any LIR [with a legitimate need for IPv4 address
space][for their own use] shall be deemed to need 1024 addresses."

The text in the first set of square brackets represents that bit of the
current policy that an unaltered 2013-03 would remove. The text in the
second set set of square brackets represents something that isn't
currently policy, but perhaps should be (or perhaps not), and which
couldn't be policy unless we retain the principle.

I suspect if we adopted the text above without alteration the effect
would be to still require a documented need for at least a single IP
address. We could further refine it to remove even that - but it has
already been mentioned that this is a negligible requirement; how would
you feel about leaving it in, given that it's so little? Taken together
with the bit in the second set of square brackets, this policy would
exclude those that apply simply in order to re-sell, but nobody else. I
would think that a simple checkbox "Do you intend to use at least one of
these IP addresses on a network you operate?" should satisfy the
documentation requirement.

Now, you're fully entitled to think that the above policy isn't really
all that fair. But it asserts a community view of what is fair, and
provides a suitable hook for the community to debate and amend its view
by changing the policy in the future. Meanwhile, the NCC will be able to
continue to claim that the community aims at fair and efficient
distribution, maximising the availability of resources where needed,
despite the challenging circumstances - and to carry on saying the same
thing if the definition of what is fair changes again.

Malcolm.
-- 
            Malcolm Hutty | tel: +44 20 7645 3523
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