Re: ARIN, was Re: 72/8 friendly reminder

[Owen DeLong <owen () delong com>]

> One question does haunt me about how the operations community views ARIN.
> Most ARIN policies are concerned with address allocation, reporting, and
> such.  There are not many policies regarding the functional role ARIN
> plays in the Internet, the only one that leaps to mind is a lame
> delegation policy under discussion.
>
> The (haunting) question is whether the operations community feels that
> there should be operational policies put before ARIN.  E.g., support for
> secure routing - when a concrete approach is defined that needs RIR
> input, should ARIN play?
NO.  Operational specifications and routing are the domain of the IETF
and _NOT_ ARIN.  ARIN is responsible for the stewardship of assigned
numbers within the ARIN region.  This includes IP addresses, Autonomous
System Numbers, and, DNS delegations for reverses on IP addresses.
While ARIN should consider routing issues and the operational impact
of ARIN stewardship policies, and, ARIN also has an educational role
in helping the community to understand BCP including operational
BCP as it relates to IP Addresses, ASNs, and DNS, ARIN has no role
in dictating or driving operational practices.

> > Most ARIN members seem to view ARIN as a distant regulatory
> > agency to whom they must regularly burn incense and make
> > sacrifices in order for the ARIN gods to bestow IP addresses
> > upon the unworthy network operator. The result is that there
> > is little participation by ARIN members in monitoring and
> > governing ARIN. And therefore, ARIN does what it has always
> > done without changing or innovating.
Huh?  I can accept that most ARIN non-members with direct assignments
see ARIN in this way, but, I find it _VERY_ hard to believe that is
the viewpoint of the majority of ARIN members.  It certainly is not
the viewpoint of the members who read any of the things they signed
when they joined.  It certainly is not the viewpoint of the members
who participate on PPML or attend ARIN meetings.  If that is the
viewpoint of the members who do not participate, then, that is
unfortunate, and, certainly a dysfunctional role for those members.

> Oh, that's was where I was going.  Is that the case?  If so, then there
> is a dysfunction.
Yep.  I'm not sure, however, what you can do to address the issue of
misperception due to willful ignorance.  If you can figure out how
to solve that, perhaps we can next tackle the problems of the
dysfunction in united States voting.

> I want to make it clear that any lack of change or innovation is not
> something that the staff has caused.  (By design the staff is in reaction
> mode.)  The lack of change or innovation is the motivation for the
> haunting question above.
I'm not sure ARIN has a change or innovation role.  It is not unlikely
that responsible stewardship includes a minimum of change and a
preservation of stability and consistency.

> PS - I think my response to Michael is not so much an opposing view, but
> a slightly different emphasis in where improvements may lie.  I really
> don't think Michael is trying to "stick it to the staff."  (I hope he's
> not.)  But a lot of times people confuse the ARIN staff with the ARIN
> membership organization.
I rarely agree with Michael, but, I do respect him.  I am quite confident
that his intent is not to "stick it" to the ARIN staff.  I think he
comes from a genuine desire to improve things.  We don't differ on that.
We differ on how.


Owen

-- 
If it wasn't crypto-signed, it probably didn't come from me.

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