[174618] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: internet governance, rir policy, and the decline of civilization
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Curran)
Sun Sep 21 09:59:18 2014
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: John Curran <jcurran@arin.net>
To: Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 13:59:02 +0000
In-Reply-To: <m238bl4v2a.wl%randy@psg.com>
Cc: North American Network Operators' Group <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
On Sep 20, 2014, at 9:32 PM, Randy Bush <randy@psg.com> wrote:
> in '92 or whenever, when the nic contract went out to bid, rick said
> he'd do it for free with some simple scripts. it's a long way from that
> to where we are today, and i doubt either extreme is where we should be.
>=20
> i suspect that if we threw out all the micro-management policies,
> restrictions on transfers, barriers to entry for legacy and newcomers,
> etc., we might be able to move significantly closer to rick's idealistic
> position.
It is true that we have accumulated several decades worth of policies
and assumptions that originate from the baseline that "IPv4 is a very
limited resource"; whether these make sense to carry over to a world=20
where RIRs are not doing IPv4 issuance but merely keeping track of the
present address holder is an excellent question. There is nothing that=20
inherently prevents a change in approach other than the policy developed=20
by the community. Given that anyone can participate in the policy=20
development process (with results that are based on participant support=20
for various proposals), does the lack of change reflect just a general=20
lack of interest in making that happen or is it a reflection of the=20
hysteresis built into the system? (i.e. the perceived need to learn=20
the policy terminology and the policy development process, write up=20
a proposal, educating others in the problem your trying to solve,=20
participating in the discussion, etc.)
I have had folks tell me that it doesn't appear worth the effort to
change policy when all they really want is to get some address space - =20
that a fairly hard situation to address; how does one have policy which=20
truly serves the needs of entire community, when the actual participants=20
are volunteers and thus a self-selected subset by definition? In the=20
ARIN region, the presumed answer to this question is the ARIN Advisory=20
Council, which shepherds the development of policy proposals into draft=20
policies and proposes them for adoption before the community (which does
reduce the amount of process issues that someone with a good idea needs=20
to know in order to raise it for consideration...) It still ultimately=20
comes down to the show of support for a given policy proposal at the=20
ARIN Public Policy Consultations (PPCs) which are held during NANOG and=20
the twice annual ARIN Public Policy Meetings. Those who participate=20
(generally between 50 and 100 folks depending on meeting) determine via=20
their show of support whether draft policies ultimately get abandoned or=20
adopted. If there is an "unserved" segment of the community out there of
any size, it simply takes attending either on-site (or remotely) to be=20
included; making significant policy changes does not require membership,=20
agreements, seats on the AC or Board, or anything else other than actual=20
participation in the process.
> buy it would require a change of paradigm, and that usually requires a
> lot of folk retiring.
I'm going to disagree since most of concerns you cite above (e.g. transfer=
=20
restrictions) are set in policy, and as I indicated, that can be readily be=
=20
changed if even a small number of people got involved with a clear intent t=
o=20
change them.
> so to repeat/paraphrase what i just said in the apnic forum,
>=20
> someone too shy to post here (yes, virginia, there are such people:)
> suggested i shill for them. i think their points are worth it.
> reasonable public resource governance practice would include at least
> the following:
> - term limits for board and committee positions (maybe 2-4 years?)
> - ten year employment caps on executive staff
> - members decide bylaws and budgets
>=20
> and as i suggested to arin, a gov/ops review consultation consisting of
> folk with some stature in these areas, and not having any members from
> board or staff.
Despite the fact that I do not believe that current policy development is=20
encumbered by the practices you cite above, I do believe that any member-
based organization should periodically look at its accountability to the=20
community served. There is some commonality of belief in that principle=20
among the other RIR; in fact, the RIRs (working via the NRO) recently=20
completed a RIR survey and published a matrix providing an overview of=20
the governance frameworks of the RIRs. It is designed as a reference=20
for the global Internet community, and provides a structured overview=20
of various aspects of RIR governance, with links to the source documents=20
on the respective websites of the RIRs -
https://www.nro.net/about-the-nro/rir-governance-matrix
I do not believe that the current RIR governance matrix gets to the level=20
of detail necessary to show each RIR's compliance to your "reasonable publi=
c=20
resource governance practices" listed above; I will propose that it be=20
updated accordingly as a first step in this process. While everyone may=20
not agree on what constitutes best practices for RIR governance, there is=20
no reason not to have clear documentation of the current state of affairs=20
to aid in the discussion.
Thanks!
/John
John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN
