On 20 Oct 2020, at 19:30, ripedenis--- via address-policy-wg <address-policy-wg@ripe.net> wrote:

Legacy space is a pain and should be normalised at every opportunity. Because of the market this has become a huge financial asset. If the holders want to cash it in, once it is sold it should lose this special, untouchable status.

Why? What’s the rationale for that? What good will it achieve? What problem does that fix? If your concern is it’s too much of a resource drain on an RIR to track these transfers, then let’s first quantify the problem before deciding how to solve it. My gut feel is those overheads are marginal and also a tolerable part of doing business. It may well be less hassle to just let those costs be lost in the noise than trying to invent some sort of cost recovery scheme. Which would of course provide lots of opportunities for shed-painting and rat-holing.

The transfer policies are their means to sell it. These policies should insist on sold legacy space being normalised and subject to all RIR policies.

Denis, I *strongly* disagree. Legacy space is like an RS-232 lead*: an annoyance from a bygone era that will always be with us. :-) We just have to suck it up. Unless of course one day the Internet stops using IPv4 and everyone’s on IPv6. [Who’s sniggering at the back!?!] * Kids, ask your grandparents... What’s the justification for "normalised at every opportunity” and what do you mean by that anyway? Forcing transferred legacy space to be subject to RIR policies is utterly wrong. First, the space was issued before the RIR system existed. It shouldn’t be subject to what amounts to retrospective legislation. That probably wouldn’t survive the flimsiest of challenges in the courts. Besides, we agreed that principle during the ERX exercise some years ago when European legacy space moved from ARIN to the NCC. Those legacy holders were not made to pay NCC fees or had their holdings of legacy space influence how their future IPv4 allocation/assignment requests got handled. Why go back on this principle now? What’s changed since then to justify that? Next, if transfers involving legacy space were forced to be subject to RIR policies, you’d just drive those transfers underground. Or the parties involved would contrive “mergers” and “reorganisations” to conceal the truth that addresses changed hands. That would be bad in far too many ways to list here. What’s more important, maintaining an accurate database of address space holders or upholding the purity of some doctrine about nearly dead IPv4 address policies that are irrelevant to a post-v4 world? FWIW we abandoned that notion of ideological purity when the LIR transfer policies were introduced. The consensus then (and now) was maintaining accurate info about who held address resources was more important than following a no longer credible policy of forcing LIRs to return their surplus space to the NCC for redistribution. Finally, suppose the recipient of a legacy transfer is not an LIR. Your suggestion implies they’d have to become one. That’ll attract the attention of legislators, regulators and the competition authorities faster than you can say anti-trust lawsuit.

On 21 Oct 2020, at 08:17, Shane Kerr <shane@time-travellers.org> wrote:

If there is a rationale for any of the RIPE policies, then that rationale should apply uniformly.

ONLY to the resources that were issued under those policies. Frankly, it’s about time to stop obsessing about policies (for IPv4?? sheesh!!) and pay attention to outcomes.

I thought it was a mistake to treat legacy space differently when I first I learned about it 22 years ago, and I still think that it is a mistake.

Fair enough Shane. [Though I don’t agree legacy space is/was a mistake.] However nobody can rewind history. So until someone invents time travel, we just have to live with what you think was a mistake.

On 21 Oct 2020, at 10:07, JORDI PALET MARTINEZ via address-policy-wg <address-policy-wg@ripe.net> wrote:

It is not fair that legacy holders are not bind to policies and services (and their cost) from the RIRs the same way as non-legacy.

Maybe, maybe not. There are plenty of other far more expensive cost centres in the NCC’s budget that are not fairly shared across the membership and nobody’s whining about them. Just look at all those cheapskates who get DNS and whois lookups from the NCC for free. Many of them aren’t even from the RIPE community. They should be paying. :-)

We "rewind history" in real life all the time. There are laws (and customs) that as time passes, we discover that were wrong or broken or need to be adapted to new times

That’s not rewriting history Jordi. You should know better. Whenever customs and laws change, the new measures do not apply to whatever had happened in the past. They apply to the present and future. For instance, suppose a government changes increases income tax. They don’t make you pay the increased rate for all the preceding years before the rate went up.

Transfers are a way to correct that, as it has been said (and done in other regions). And every day it has less sense to keep the resources legacy: you need other resources from the RIR (like IPv6, other ASN, etc.), so then you sign the service agreement.

I’ve already explained why that’s utterly wrong. If you think legacy holders should pay something, I maybe agree with that in principle. [But definitely not signing a service agreement which forces a legacy holder to become an LIR.] And maybe that’s a discussion that could be had once there was some hard data. My gut feel is the cost to the NCC of looking after legacy space is negligible and not worth worrying about. It’ll barely be a rounding error in the Registry Services budget. Setting up and running a system to recover that insignificant amount of money from legacy holders will cost far more: contracts, invoicing, staff time, etc. Assuming there was a legal basis for imposing those charges. Which there almost certainly isn’t. OTOH devising such a system will provide endless opportunities for the shed-painting and rat-holing that some members of our community *love*. Who cares about the underlying issue? Just think of all the months we can waste bickering over the policy and process minutiae. In any case, the RIPE community and the NCC membership simply shouldn’t attempt this sort of micro-management. That’s the path to madness: “I want X EUR off my fee because I didn’t use any of the training courses last year. Or RIPEstat. Or take part in a hackathon. Or update my database entries. Or....”. It may well be reasonable to say something’s not fair. For some definition of fair. But it can sometimes be even more unreasonable to attempt to correct that -- extra costs, more complexity, higher administrative overheads, -- etc it simply isn’t worth the effort. Or addressing that unfairness creates other unfairnesses elsewhere. Sometimes pragmatic decisions have to be made because these are the least-worst solutions for the perceived level of unfairness.

RIPE region is a bit special on that, in the sense that we have a single fee for everything, but in other regions is not the same way, and it is somehow proportional to the "amount" of resources you hold. I also think that's unfair. Of course, that's a different discussion ...

Indeed. And a discussion to be had somewhere else, perhaps at the NCC’s AGM. The NCC used to have a byzantine charging scheme for setting membership fees based (roughly) on the member’s allocation of NCC-issued resources. Broadly speaking, the biggest LIRs paid more. However that system was hard to administer and created too many problems. So the membership applied common sense and voted to have a flat fee. If you want legacy holders to pay, both the RIPE and NCC policy making machinery is open to you.

Hi, On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 11:16:29AM +0100, Jim Reid wrote:

If you want legacy holders to pay, both the RIPE and NCC policy making machinery is open to you.

"The NCC policy machinery by means of the AGM". The *RIPE* policy machinery has no say in "what should some folks pay that do not fall under RIPE policy". Or, more general, in "pay". Gert Doering -- APWG chair -- have you enabled IPv6 on something today...? SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard, Michael Emmer Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) Tel: +49 (0)89/32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279

Hi Hans, I was talking in general, not just in this region. Also, they need be bound to the policies, which is not the case in all the regions. As said, those are separate problems, not the same in all the RIRs, but closely related and also related to the transfers as a possible way to avoid the “continuity” of all those differential situations. Regards, Jordi @jordipalet El 21/10/20 16:06, "address-policy-wg en nombre de Hank Nussbacher" <address-policy-wg-bounces@ripe.net en nombre de hank@interall.co.il> escribió: On 21/10/2020 13:16, Jim Reid wrote: If you think legacy holders should pay something, I maybe agree with that in principle. [But definitely not signing a service agreement which forces a legacy holder to become an LIR.] And maybe that’s a discussion that could be had once there was some hard data. ... If you want legacy holders to pay, both the RIPE and NCC policy making machinery is open to you. Legacy holders already pay. See screenshot from my LIR bill for 2020. Been like that since our 2016 bill. Regards, Hank Caveat: The views expressed above are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer ********************************************** IPv4 is over Are you ready for the new Internet ? http://www.theipv6company.com The IPv6 Company This electronic message contains information which may be privileged or confidential. The information is intended to be for the exclusive use of the individual(s) named above and further non-explicilty authorized disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information, even if partially, including attached files, is strictly prohibited and will be considered a criminal offense. If you are not the intended recipient be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information, even if partially, including attached files, is strictly prohibited, will be considered a criminal offense, so you must reply to the original sender to inform about this communication and delete it.

Right, however, a policy (proposal), could be in the direction of what services are only for members with a contract. Regards, Jordi @jordipalet El 21/10/20 13:07, "address-policy-wg en nombre de Gert Doering" <address-policy-wg-bounces@ripe.net en nombre de gert@space.net> escribió: Hi, On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 11:07:04AM +0200, JORDI PALET MARTINEZ via address-policy-wg wrote: > I agree with Shane here. > > We shall correct mistakes ASAP. Legacy was a mistake, just because we didn't have the RIR system before, nothing else. It was not a conscious decision, nobody understood at that time that Internet as a "global" thing will need those resources and will become scarce. There is no contractual basis on which to "fix" anything here. Legacy holders that are willing to change their resources into regular RIPE space can do this today. For those that do not want to do so, let me repeat: there is no contractual basis to make them do something they do not want. Gert Doering -- APWG chair -- have you enabled IPv6 on something today...? SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard, Michael Emmer Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) Tel: +49 (0)89/32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279 ********************************************** IPv4 is over Are you ready for the new Internet ? http://www.theipv6company.com The IPv6 Company This electronic message contains information which may be privileged or confidential. The information is intended to be for the exclusive use of the individual(s) named above and further non-explicilty authorized disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information, even if partially, including attached files, is strictly prohibited and will be considered a criminal offense. If you are not the intended recipient be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information, even if partially, including attached files, is strictly prohibited, will be considered a criminal offense, so you must reply to the original sender to inform about this communication and delete it.

Right, however, a policy (proposal), could be in the direction of what services are only for members with a contract.

That is already what is in the current policy for legacy holders .. https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-639 <=- RIPE NCC Services to Legacy Internet Resource Holders https://www.ripe.net/manage-ips-and-asns/legacy-resources/ripe-ncc-services-... <=- shiny colours in a nice matrix showing exactly what the options are. And here an example of a policy with a specific Legacy holder part in it, the policy: Resource Certification for non-members : https://www.ripe.net/participate/policies/proposals/2013-04 2013-04 provided a way to include legacy holders into the RPKI system, by requirement that there is a contractual agreement in place with the RIPE NCC. Regards, Erik Bais On 21/10/2020, 13:41, "address-policy-wg on behalf of JORDI PALET MARTINEZ via address-policy-wg" <address-policy-wg-bounces@ripe.net on behalf of address-policy-wg@ripe.net> wrote: Right, however, a policy (proposal), could be in the direction of what services are only for members with a contract. Regards, Jordi @jordipalet El 21/10/20 13:07, "address-policy-wg en nombre de Gert Doering" <address-policy-wg-bounces@ripe.net en nombre de gert@space.net> escribió: Hi, On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 11:07:04AM +0200, JORDI PALET MARTINEZ via address-policy-wg wrote: > I agree with Shane here. > > We shall correct mistakes ASAP. Legacy was a mistake, just because we didn't have the RIR system before, nothing else. It was not a conscious decision, nobody understood at that time that Internet as a "global" thing will need those resources and will become scarce. There is no contractual basis on which to "fix" anything here. Legacy holders that are willing to change their resources into regular RIPE space can do this today. For those that do not want to do so, let me repeat: there is no contractual basis to make them do something they do not want. Gert Doering -- APWG chair -- have you enabled IPv6 on something today...? SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard, Michael Emmer Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) Tel: +49 (0)89/32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279 ********************************************** IPv4 is over Are you ready for the new Internet ? http://www.theipv6company.com The IPv6 Company This electronic message contains information which may be privileged or confidential. The information is intended to be for the exclusive use of the individual(s) named above and further non-explicilty authorized disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information, even if partially, including attached files, is strictly prohibited and will be considered a criminal offense. If you are not the intended recipient be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information, even if partially, including attached files, is strictly prohibited, will be considered a criminal offense, so you must reply to the original sender to inform about this communication and delete it.

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. "Either way it's irrelevant because it's not really possible to back out of this sort of policy arrangement. The most sensible approach in the circumstances is leave it and move on." 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. cheersdenis On Wednesday, 21 October 2020, 13:16:35 CEST, Nick Hilliard <nick@foobar.org> wrote: Jim Reid wrote on 21/10/2020 09:32:

Fair enough Shane. [Though I don’t agree legacy space is/was a mistake.] However nobody can rewind history. So until someone invents time travel, we just have to live with what you think was a mistake. more to the point, the legacy policy resources document says that if RIPE community policy is created or updated, it only applies to legacy address space if the policy says so explicitly.

The consequence of this is that legacy address holders can easily veto any future changes to legacy address policy that they don't like. Some people think this is a great idea; other don't and feel this was a mistake.  Either way it's irrelevant because it's not really possible to back out of this sort of policy arrangement. The most sensible approach in the circumstances is leave it and move on. Nick

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

Hi Denis, On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 02:32:02PM +0000, ripedenis@yahoo.co.uk wrote:

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.

How many divisions does the RIPE community have? This question was, anecdotally and rhetorically, asked by Stalin wrt the Pope. This is not a bad analogy as the Vatican can make all sorts of rules but can only "enforce" them vs members of the roman catholic church (and with less than absolute success at that) "Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable." --Otto v. Bismarck

"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.

Fistly, let me address a point which I missed in my previous: WHICH legislator? EUPARL? UKPARL? Putin? Erdogan? The King of Saudi Arabia? All within the RIPE service region. Secondly, I stand over my point. Legislators will legislate if they see an advantage in doing so and if they listen to anyone it will not be the RIPE community. I may yet happen that a nation state will think it advantageous to lay claim to the ownership of certain integers and there will be nothing the RIPE community or the NCC can do about this, so why worry about this now?

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.

I would want to hear the opinion of an actual lawyer about this, so far it sounds like mere wishful thinking. rgds, Sascha Luck

Thanks Jim, I couldn't have said it better myself. Also, with the Legacy transfers, there needs to be proper documentation to make sure all records from the past match up AND there is going to be an update in the RIR registry that will make sure the records are up to date. Updating the registry with accurate information while we do changes in the database on the actual owner and user of the Legacy space is a huge plus for the accuracy. Erik On 20/10/2020, 23:47, "address-policy-wg on behalf of Jim Reid" <address-policy-wg-bounces@ripe.net on behalf of jim@rfc1035.com> wrote: > On 20 Oct 2020, at 19:30, ripedenis--- via address-policy-wg <address-policy-wg@ripe.net> wrote: > > Legacy space is a pain and should be normalised at every opportunity. Because of the market this has become a huge financial asset. If the holders want to cash it in, once it is sold it should lose this special, untouchable status. Why? What’s the rationale for that? What good will it achieve? What problem does that fix? If your concern is it’s too much of a resource drain on an RIR to track these transfers, then let’s first quantify the problem before deciding how to solve it. My gut feel is those overheads are marginal and also a tolerable part of doing business. It may well be less hassle to just let those costs be lost in the noise than trying to invent some sort of cost recovery scheme. Which would of course provide lots of opportunities for shed-painting and rat-holing. > The transfer policies are their means to sell it. These policies should insist on sold legacy space being normalised and subject to all RIR policies. Denis, I *strongly* disagree. Legacy space is like an RS-232 lead*: an annoyance from a bygone era that will always be with us. :-) We just have to suck it up. Unless of course one day the Internet stops using IPv4 and everyone’s on IPv6. [Who’s sniggering at the back!?!] * Kids, ask your grandparents... What’s the justification for "normalised at every opportunity” and what do you mean by that anyway? Forcing transferred legacy space to be subject to RIR policies is utterly wrong. First, the space was issued before the RIR system existed. It shouldn’t be subject to what amounts to retrospective legislation. That probably wouldn’t survive the flimsiest of challenges in the courts. Besides, we agreed that principle during the ERX exercise some years ago when European legacy space moved from ARIN to the NCC. Those legacy holders were not made to pay NCC fees or had their holdings of legacy space influence how their future IPv4 allocation/assignment requests got handled. Why go back on this principle now? What’s changed since then to justify that? Next, if transfers involving legacy space were forced to be subject to RIR policies, you’d just drive those transfers underground. Or the parties involved would contrive “mergers” and “reorganisations” to conceal the truth that addresses changed hands. That would be bad in far too many ways to list here. What’s more important, maintaining an accurate database of address space holders or upholding the purity of some doctrine about nearly dead IPv4 address policies that are irrelevant to a post-v4 world? FWIW we abandoned that notion of ideological purity when the LIR transfer policies were introduced. The consensus then (and now) was maintaining accurate info about who held address resources was more important than following a no longer credible policy of forcing LIRs to return their surplus space to the NCC for redistribution. Finally, suppose the recipient of a legacy transfer is not an LIR. Your suggestion implies they’d have to become one. That’ll attract the attention of legislators, regulators and the competition authorities faster than you can say anti-trust lawsuit.