On May 29, 2012, at 10:05 AM, David Conrad wrote:
I thought the whole point of maintaining the databases was to ensure uniqueness and provide contact information in the event of network-related issues. That is a necessary but not sufficient requirement for connecting computers together or the Internet. The point of the statement "RIRs have nothing to do with routing" is to emphasize that the other requirements for connecting computers to the Internet are outside of the RIRs' control.
David - As you know, RFC 2050 includes "conservation" (fair distribution of globally unique Internet address space according to the operational needs of the end-users and Internet Service Providers operating networks using this address space) as well as "routability" (distribution of globally unique Internet addresses in a hierarchical manner thus permitting the routing scalability of the addresses) as equally valid goals to consider in the management of IP address space. Some examples where these goals have come into consideration in various regions include policies that provides for provider-independent assignments for those organizations who multi-home, policies that encourage reutilization of unused address space, etc. It is possible that the goals in RFC 2050 are worth reevaluating (in light of IPv4 runout, the nature of IPv6, etc.) but the community has yet to perform that task and so it should not be surprising in the meantime that some policy discussions in the regions may take into consideration more than simply the single goal of ensuring uniqueness. FYI, /John John Curran President and CEO ARIN