As has been discussed at ARIN, this is a good way to get the government to declare the RIR a monopoly engaging in anticompetitive behavior. I for one don't want that.
I don't think that follows, but unless ARIN legal counsel or someone who is a real lawyer has made a statement here, I'm not sure how seriously to take this. Pointer to such official legal counsel would be appreciated.
Those of us who have lived and worked in North America or the UK, have a general understanding of this because restraint of trade doctrine is a part of English common law which was then inherited by other countries such as Canada and the USA. However, European competition law is not based on the same principles and in the UK today, there are often conflicts between the doctrine of restraint of trade and European competition law. If you are interested in understanding this then start here http://nys-stlc.syr.edu/lawlibrary/antitrust/antitrustbasics.aspx The important bit is the RULE OF REASON towards the bottom. If your English is advanced enough, then you could try reading legislation such as the Sherman Act, but you may find that lawyers like to use common words in uncommon ways. This illustrates the wisdom of the industry driven bottom-up policy development process that results in ARIN developing IP address policy in North America and RIPE doing the same job in Europe. There are different norms of society and of law in these different places. The people of North America would probably view your position as a SOCIALIST one and see that as a very negative thing. However, in Europe, people will tend to see your position as a SOCIALIST one and see that as a good thing. Because you are crossposting this thread to a global V6 list and to a RIPE mailing list, it seems to me that you feel there should be a single unitary global policy. However, that is contrary to the structure of the RIR system, contrary to NRO policy and contrary to the outcome of last autumns WSIS meetings. Policy proposal 2005-1 is an ARIN proposal that has worked its way through the ARIN policy process. We discussed it intensely at the recent ARIN meeting in Montreal and it was broadly accepted by the participants at that meeting. It is highly likely that it will become part of ARIN policy and ARIN *WILL* be issuing PI IPv6 blocks by the end of the year. You are welcome to register your disapproval, however so many people have worked to develop this reasonable compromise that I don't think you will be able to sway any of them.
RIRs run on non-profit principle, but nothing precludes them from increasing the expenses, e.g., for donations to make the internet a better place, setting a foundation for multihoming research to actually SOLVE this problem, etc.etc.
I'm not sure if research is within ARIN's scope, however even if it is, we cannot delay deployment of IPv6 merely because there is still a need for research. Throughout the deployment of IPv4 and the astronomical growth of the Internet, both research and commercial deployment happened simultaneously and the results brought major benefits to society, even if it did mean a lot of struggle with imperfections.
I wouldn't object to reserving a /44 just in case, but make no provisions (at this point) for applying more. If someone needs more than /48, it needs to justify another one, and get a separate /48 (with its own reserved /44).
I think you misunderstand ARIN's allocation algorithm here. The purpose of a reserved block is to allow an applicant to receive an increased allocation from the reserved block in order to be able to aggregate the new and old allocations. If the recipient of a /48 allocation applies for more and receieves the rest of their reserved /44 then they can announce a single /44 prefix instead of two /48 prefixes (or more). This minimizes the impact on the global routing table. The ARIN IPv4 allocation algorithm works the same way. --Michael Dillon