Subject: Re: Request To Advance : "Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses"

From: Dan Lanciani <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 14:41:30 -0500 (EST)

Alain Durand <[email-masked]> wrote:

|- Permanent allocation is equivalent of selling address space,

No, it is not.  Address space could be given away at no cost just as it was
in the beginning.  A fee may be a useful tool to discourage hoarding, but there
may be other equally effective (or even more effective) ways to achieve that
goal.  A fee may be useful to help fund a registry, but it may not be necessary
if some entity decides to maintain the registry as a public service (still not
unheard of).  In either case, fees are a means to an end.  They are not the
end itself.

|which is
|very different from
|   the notion of stewardship that are now in place for any IP address
|allocation today.

The address rental model (or "stewardship" as you euphemistically call it)
arose from the perceived need to limit IPv4 core routing table growth, and
eventually to conserve actual IPv4 address space.  The model was perpetuated
to IPv6 routable address space through an (IMHO questionable) argument that 
IPv6 routing had to work exactly the same as IPv4 routing.  Rental is not
an intrinsic property of address allocation nor has it always been the norm.
As above, it is a means to an end.  Moreover, as money tends to corrupt, it is
at best a necessary evil.  It seems disingenuous to suggest that the current
rental model for routables can justify a similar rental model for this new type
of address space given that the (dubious to begin with) arguments for the former
don't apply to the latter.  Arguably we should spend more time examining the
"necessity" of the rental model for routables with an eye to restoring end user
routable address ownership and the end-to-end paradigm that made the original
internet so powerful.

|   There are a number of legal questions not answered around this point.

I have yet to see any substantive questions, or at least any questions that
don't have self-evident answers.  You had raised the issue of transfer.  I
think it is obvious to anyone who wants these new addresses to be useful
that it is not desirable to hold up a corporate merger while a hierarchy of
registries decides how much money they can charge for the transfer.  The
deep legal questions have yet appear.

On the other hand, there are some serious practical problems with the model
that you propose.  The one that worries me the most (and for which you
offered no solution) is:  how do we decide who is allowed to compete in the
registry business?  Is it possible to impose your competitive registry business
model without precluding any low-to-no cost providers?

|   More, this is imposing a business model to the entity that will be in
|charge of the allocations,
|   and I believe that the IETF should refrain from imposing business
|model.

It's a little late for that.  The IETF is perpetually imposing business models,
if only indirectly.  The aforementioned address rental model is among them, as
would be your suggested competitive registry model.  In general, it seems that
folks start to object to the imposition of business models only when they don't
like the particular business model in question...

				Dan Lanciani
				ddl@danlan.*com

--------------------------------------------------------------------
IETF IPv6 working group mailing list
[email-masked]
Administrative Requests: https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipv6
--------------------------------------------------------------------

---

From: "Jeroen Massar" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 20:50:37 +0100

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

> |- Permanent allocation is equivalent of selling address space,

I have only one note on the "unique local ipv6 address" subject:

Organisations wanting "unconnected addressspace" should go to
an existing organisation that they think will outlast them in age
and that already has a LIR allocation allocated. Give them some
money to make them happy and request a /48 from them.

As long as the organisation owning the superblock of that /48
doesn't go belly up you have yourself a globally unique /48.

This is the same idea as getting a 'globally unique domainname'
pay "Example Corp." some money and they will be happy to give
you youruniquedomain.example.com.

I even think that some ISP could see business in this, they 
request a prefix from the RIR's and have 200 customers without
problems ;)

Greets,
 Jeroen