[ncc-services-wg] ERX stands for "legacy", was Re: Policy proposal for services to legacy Internet resource holders

Randy,

On Wednesday, 2012-08-29 17:07:14 +0700, 
Randy Bush <randy at psg.com> wrote:
> naive question before we switch terms.  is
> 
>    erx == legacy
> 
> i.e. pre-ncc?  no strange corner cases?

ERX stands for "early registration transfer". It was the inter-RIR
project (I believe between the RIPE NCC, APNIC, and ARIN) designed to
make life easier by getting these out of the ARIN database if they made
more sense elsewhere.

IIRC, the motivation is that it was a pain for people to deal with ARIN
if they were many time zones away, and separated by cultural
differences. So, if you got a /16 from SRI back in 1990 but your
network is in Denmark, then you probably already deal with the RIPE NCC
for other things and would prefer not to have to figure out yet another
confusing bureaucracy for updating contact and reverse DNS details on
that one network. Plus it means that ARIN only has to deal with
Americans, which I guess they like. ;)

Looking at it from ARIN's point of view, they initially inherited all of
their addresses from Network Solutions, so everything pre-1998 could be
considered "legacy". From the RIPE NCC's point of view, these were
actively transferred in during 2002, so I'm not sure the same term
applies, although I suppose it is as good as any other.

For the record, I think the treatment - both now and proposed - of ERX
space is fundamentally unfair. OTOH, I also don't think it really
matters too much in the long run, and a little unfairness is not the
worst thing in the world. :)

--
Shane