Because there are so many differences I want to focus the discussion on a specific question at this point in time: "Do we (this working group) want to put IPv6 related requirements in the policy?"

No. It would be wrong to favour the foresighted organizations who are deploying IPv6 because they are already in a stronger position since they have IPv6 in production or in test mode.

I can see the benefit (stimulate native IPv6 deployment) of such requirements, but I can also see downsides (for example organisations that need IPv4 space but can't implement IPv6 for some reason).

I haven't seen evidence that this kind of thing will stimulate IPv6 deployment. The decision makers responsible for approving investment in IPv6, are not likely to take note of the details of RIPE policy. The only thing that really matters at that level is that IPv4 will runout, and that runout is projected to happen as early as two years from now. Adding more details just muddies the waters of that clear message, and would hurt IPv6 deployment more than helping it.

Do organisations that don't implement IPv6 cause a problem for the community (and do we need policy to prevent that), or do they only cause problems for themselves (and should we only limit the amount of IPv4 space they can get)?

Yes, they cause a problem for the Internet community, but also for themselves because they will likely go out of business. Every few years there are circumstances in an industry that cause the stronger companies to take over the business of the weaker ones by some means or other. IPv6 deployment readiness is likely to be an important factor in this over the next few years, but RIPE is not responsible to do anything about it, just as it was not RIPE's responsibility to do anything about the telecoms collapse at the turn of the century. --Michael Dillon

Sander Steffann wrote the following on 22/06/2009 16:41:

Do organisations that don't implement IPv6 cause a problem for the community (and do we need policy to prevent that), or do they only cause problems for themselves (and should we only limit the amount of IPv4 space they can get)?

Arguably yes, they cause a problem for the community, but I think that forcing v6 deployment via policy is both wrong and doomed to failure.

We should also look at possible loopholes. I don't think we want an LIR to give IPv6 access to a handful of customers just to be able to get another big block of IPv4 space.

And this is a point also. There is nothing stopping someone from asking for a v4 allocation along with a v6 allocation and then doing nothing with the v6 allocation. It's not like reclaiming the v4 allocation will be easy.

Once we have discussed this basic issue I'll steer the discussion back to the other differences between the proposals. Please keep the discussion on this topic for now.

I realise I'm repeating points here to a certain extent but I feel they're worth making. As with the others I do believe that, in the long run, the cost of not deploying IPv6 will be your business. We need to develop policy that will divide the remaining IPv4 resources in the fairest way possible and shackling the two together will not, imo, produce that fairness. Brian.