[address-policy-wg] APNIC temporarily freezing v4 transfers to RIPE NCC?

* "Sascha Luck [ml]" <apwg at c4inet.net>

> On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 03:36:41PM +0000, Nick Hilliard wrote:
> >and without knowing the background it seems peculiar that APNIC
> >feels it necessary to consult ARIN about APNIC->RIPE NCC resource
> >transfers.
> 
> I reckon APNIC is afraid they will not get transfers from ARIN if
> there is a possibility that those may subsequently be transferred
> to RIPE.

Indeed, that's how I understood Paul Wilson's mic comments after
Andrea's APRICOT 2015 presentation, i.e., even though ARIN and APNIC
transfer policies are compatible to begin with, the worry is that if
transfers between the APNIC and RIPE regions commence without
demonstrated need, than this fact would somehow «infect» the APNIC
policy such that ARIN would no longer consider it to be sufficiently
«needs based» and thus incompatible (even though the APNIC policy text
would not change at all).

As I understand it, transfers between the APNIC and RIPE regions
without demonstrated need is exactly what would happen with the current
APNIC policy + 2015-05, since current APNIC policy doesn't «require the
receiving region to have needs-based policies».

However, the transcript quotes Andrea as saying «Both RIRs that have an
inter-RIR transfer policy in place, meaning ARIN and APNIC, confirmed
that their policy requires a needs base in order to do inter-RIR
transfers». After reading APNIC's policy document, I do not think this
is accurate. I wonder how this understanding of APNIC's inter-RIR
transfer policy requiring needs basis came to be.

In any case, ARIN staff has confirmed on multiple occasions now that 1)
2014-05 is compatible with ARIN's transfer policy, and even if it
wasn't 2) that any policy adopted by a third-party RIR community cannot
alter the compatibility state between the ARIN and APNIC policies. Thus
it seems very clear that there is absolutely no cause for concern;
after the passage of 2014-05, all three RIRs in question will be
compatible with the other two.

I guess that the APNIC EC meeting might have happened before these
assurances from ARIN staff was made public, and that would help explain
why they decided to temporarily override their own community policies.
Now that it is known that their worries were unfounded, I'd expect the
them to lift the freeze at the next EC meeting.

Tore