Hi Wilfried,
How to deal with moving address space from a PI assignment to a different party?
Well, I can see 2 *substantially* different scenarios:
1) the current holder of the address block doesn't need *all of it* any longer (and wants to get money from an interested party, but that's a side issue).
2) the current holder of the address block doesn't need *any* of the addresses any longer and wants to transfer the full block, in one chunk or in smaller pieces.
Nr. 1 is pretty easy, and possible already or really soon now: convert the PI block to PA, thus become an LIR, and proceed according to the rules.
Nr. 2 is more tricky.
Actually, I don't believe it is - your procedure #1 will work just as well for case #2 as it would for case #1. That this works is stated fairly clearly on the NCC's web site: http://www.ripe.net/lir-services/resource-management/converting-pi-to-pa So PI transfers are already possible, following this procedure: 1) The current PI holder signs up as a member and pays the first invoice. In 2014, this would cost somewhere between €2437.50 and €3750 depending on in which quartal it happens. 2) The PI block (or parts of it) is converted to PA. 3) The new PA block is transferred to another NCC member under ripe-606 section 5.5. [...] 6) Finally, original PI holder may optionally close his LIR to avoid any further membership fees. He'd then also have to move any remaining parts of his PI assignment into a sponsoring relationship with another LIR. What it boils down to is that we are levying a transaction fee for non-members. That might be perfectly OK in itself (APNIC does too, FWIW), but we're doing it in a really awkward and roundabout way. One benefit is that once a PI block has become PA, there is no going back, and we've ensured that all its future holders will all be members that will be participating equally in the cost-sharing model. However, there is a possible disadvantage too - by forcing the original PI holder to become a (temporary) member in the first place, we're almost inviting him to take advantage of that fact by adding the following steps to the above procedure: 4) The original PI holder requests a /22 from the «last /8» pool. 5) The original PI holder transfers that /22 to another NCC member under ripe-606 section 5.5. Now, assuming that the hear-say about the market value of €10/address is anywhere near correct, step #5 would net him around ~€10.240. That is almost three times the worst case «transaction fee» from step #1. Oops! So we don't really have a functioning «fee» that would positively fund the cost-sharing model, but an invitation to make a quick extra buck at the community's expense.
Now, as soon as the original criteria are no longer in place, the resource MUST be returned. A PI holder offering the *full block* to an interested party (for money or for free) obviously matches that provision. The resource needs to get returned to the pool.
I don't think you can support this claim with actual policy provisions. What policy says, is that an such an assignment is «no longer valid». It does *not* say what should happen to invalid assignments, but one obvious way to deal with it is to fix whatever is making it invalid, so that it no longer is. There are several other things that might make an assignment invalid too, and this page talks about how they should be fixed, not how they should be reclaimed: http://www.ripe.net/lir-services/resource-management/number-resources/invali... In this specific case, I'd say that converting PI to PA is a perfectly logical way of correcting a PI assignment that has been made invalid due to a criteria change. The PI holder could for example have started an ISP service and assigned PI blocks to his end users, which is invalid usage for PI, but it is exactly what PA is intended for. Tore