[ga] IP address policy - looking past the RIRs...
A day or two ago you asked a really important question: Are you implying that this policy is not good for internet users? I.e., they do not benefit? If so, please provide specifics. (I really am interested in this topic). I also believe that this policy has pretty much no direct effect on end users. Even the indirect effects are very limited. My concern about IP address policy, whether v4 or v6, is not that what has been done so far is misdirected. Quite the contrary, I think it's a pretty good first step. But first steps require second, and third, and fourth steps, etc. And once we begin walking we really ought to know, at least in general terms, where we want to end up. ICANN's address policies can be summed up as "When a RIRs asks, grant." Now I know that is over simplistic and is, in fact, unfair. But it serves to illustrate the basic presumptions of the existing policies - when the RIR's need address space, ICANN requires of them little more than a rationale and a plan. But ICANN's policies lack guidance about how to evaluate whether those rationales and plans are benefiting those whom ICANN is supposed to protect, the community of internet users (which includes ISPs as well as end users and address consuming businesses.) The RIRs have bent over backwards to try to hear the needs of end users who are not ISPs - for example, there have been a lot of midnight pixels burned over when, how, if, over provider independent addresses so that businesses can multi-home. What I am looking for is something like this: That ICANN require the RIRs to demonstrate that they have followed a process that forces them to articulate and weigh the needs of those who don't show up at ARIN or RIPE or APNIC or whatever. This is a lot like the way that environmental impact reports work - not that the result is dictated but rather that a process is to be followed to ensure that those interests that are not normally articulated will, in fact, be articulated, and weighed using clear methods and in accord with clear principles. To do this ICANN needs to formulate IP address policies in terms of desired goals - perhaps somewhat vague goals - like balancing the needs of end users for public address space against the needs of providers to keep routing tables reasonably sized and to propagate routing updates reasonably quickly. (At an earlier time I might have suggested policies to prevent the growth of NATs. At least with regard to IPv4 that's probably a lost cause. But perhaps it's a reasonable policy goal for IPv6, particularly if we consider that once people have become used to IPv4 private spaces they might easily use IPv6 private spaces even though, if the policies were right, that it isn't really necessary for them to do so.) And to do this ICANN needs to articulate who are the intended beneficiaries of the address policies - the ISPs, the RIRs, end users? --karl--
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