* Tore Anderson <tore@fud.no> [2013-03-19 20:33]:
For what it's worth, my opinion is that it will indeed continue in this manner, even if 2013-03 is accepted. The way I see it, this will follow naturally from the depletion state we're in. LIRs know by now that they can no longer come running to the NCC to refill their pools should they run empty, hence they have all the incentive in the world to conserve what they have already been allocated, and therefore only assign to its End Users the space that the End User actually need and can justify. 2013-03 leaves it to the individual LIR to decide on what periods and criteria makes the most sense in each case, though.
My first reaction was: Oh god, our sales people will go crazy dishing out the remaining IP space. Right now I can just point to the RIPE regulations and tell them that I need documentation. "LIRs know by now that they can no longer come running to the NCC" I would rephrase that as "Some technicians at the LIR know...". Having said that, I understand that it doesn't make sense for the RIPE NCC to have regulations that are no longer needed just to back internal arguments between IPv4 savvy technicians and sales/management/customers at an LIR. For us I don't see a big problem as I can implement an internal set of rules regulating the assignment of our remaining space. It would help, however, if the RIPE NCC would publish some sort of guidance document on how to establish/document the need for IP addresses. I assume that the RIPE NCC already has something like that for their resource analysts?
Should a LIR on the other hand opt not to do so, and assign to its End User the amount of addresses the End User asked for with no limitation, that LIR will realise soon enough that it has done a grave mistake. However, that mistake only hurts that LIR only - you, me, and the rest of the community are not affected by that LIRs mistakes (unlike what we would be if the same thing happened pre-depletion).
The upside is that under 2013-03, if you or I get a new customer signing a, say, three-year contract, that leaves no doubt that he has a valid need for addresses in that period - the policy will actually allow us to make that assignment.
Yes, I also see that the new flexibility could be useful. I support this proposal. Regards Sebastian -- GPG Key: 0x93A0B9CE (F4F6 B1A3 866B 26E9 450A 9D82 58A2 D94A 93A0 B9CE) 'Are you Death?' ... IT'S THE SCYTHE, ISN'T IT? PEOPLE ALWAYS NOTICE THE SCYTHE. -- Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant