On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 16:26, Nick Hilliard <nick@inex.ie> wrote:

On 19/09/2010 19:12, Chris Grundemann wrote:
> Problem #1: The allocation method was unfair.

"Fairness" is a remarkably mercurial concept which has little or no meaning
in an environment of plenty. It's much easier to talk about "unfairness":
which is the state of mind of candidate A, when candidate B receives
preferential treatment. Just look at squabbling children and their
exquisitely honed sense of personal injustice.

Understood. As a parent I definitely see that the term can be used subjectively as well as objectively. Letting one child eat all of the food in the house while the other starves falls clearly into the latter case, imo. This is very similar to the problem we believe that we have corrected in the new text; as described in the OP:

The intent was never for a single RIR to be able to be allocated all
available address space in mass quantities. We do however want any
available address space to be utilized if there is need. We've
addressed what we would characterize as a mechanical issue.

I would suggest that - regardless of the rules set up now - there will be a
lot of "unfairness" and "injustice" of this sort once address space
exhaustion hits.

I agree in that there will be "pain" felt by everyone and thus very likely calls of "unfairness" and "injustice." I believe that our goal as stewards of the Internet (or at the very least policy makers) should be to try to spread the pain as proportionally as possible - so that such inevitable cries are much more of the subjective type than the objective.

Nick

Best,
~Chris
(speaking for myself - I did not clear this response with other authors, etc)