HI Sascha

I think you are wrong on both your points. Firstly you are making the classic confusion between RIPE NCC and RIPE. Policies are made by the RIPE community based on consensual agreement. Once agreed it is expected all affected parties will accept and follow a policy. Presumably the contract members have with the RIPE NCC requires them to follow future RIPE policies. But legacy resource holders are still part of the RIPE community and probably take part in the discussions on policies. As part of an industry based on cooperation and consensual driven policy they do have an obligation to follow all policies agreed, even if it is not legally enforceable.

"If legislators want to make law, they'll make law, regardless of what RIPE does."

This is not true. The years of discussions between the RIRs and governments and LEAs on internet governance have shown that as long as the industry acts responsibly and manages the internet in a way that governments and LEAs can accept then things can continue as they are now. It is a balance and balances have tipping points.

I think David Farmer made a good point:

"The concept that the legacy status applies independently to resources or IP addresses, separate from their assignment to a resource holder, seems incorrect. The legacy status applies to the assignment of resources to a resource holder before the creation of the RIRs, but not to the resources or the IP addresses themselves. "

I agree with this statement. The legacy status should only apply to 'contractual ownership' or 'administrative management' of resources, not to consensual policy driven operational use of address space. Even if the contracts under which they received their legacy address space suggested they could assign the same rights to a buyer of the address space, the environment under which address space is used is governed by policies now. ALL address space used in this environment should be subject to the policies governing this environment, regardless of administrative status.

cheers
denis

On Wednesday, 21 October 2020, 15:49:43 CEST, Sascha Luck [ml] <apwg@c4inet.net> wrote:


On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 12:10:16PM +0000, ripedenis--- via address-policy-wg wrote:
> It is not only address policy they can veto. Correct me if I am mistaken, but I understood they can veto any policy they don't like. The internet is critical infrastructure that impacts the lives of almost every human on the planet (and non human lives). It is an essential tool but cyberspace is also a dangerous world. We should not have a group of untouchables in a system based on cooperation and consensus.
>

Aside from the argumentum ad passiones fallacy, the fact of the
matter is that the NCC can't force any organisation it does not
have a contract with to do anything. It's a question of "how many
divisions does the RIPE NCC have?".


>This attitude will not work indefinitely. At some point legislators will step in. When you have the power to impose rules you don't need a time machine.


I'm getting somewhat tired of this argument cropping up in
*every* policy proposal discussion lately. This is a) FUD and b)
intervention in advance of evidence.
If legislators want to make law, they'll make law, regardless of
what RIPE does. That battle will have to be fought when it is
joined, no precautionary obedience will change anything.

rgds,
Sascha Luck