[NA-Discuss] address allocation, was Google Fiber

[Eric Brunner-Williams]

On 2/10/13 4:31 PM, John R. Levine wrote:
>> Naive, as I am, I am still a little unsure of how much the
>> > distribution of ip addresses is ICANN's business.
> It is ICANN's business to the extent that ICANN runs IANA which handed out 
> most of the original /8 allocations, and has a modest pool of returned 
> space.

I prefer to refer to the relationship between the IANA Function and
ICANN as "contract" and "current contractor", and not suggest that all
that the IANA Function amounts to is some past activity consisting "of
the original /8 allocations and a modest pool of returned space".

This understates the importance of the NRO, hence the ASO, as entities
formed by the RIRs for the coordination of RIR policies.

> But IP space routing happens from the bottom up, unlike domain names which 
> work from the top down.  If the RIRs decided they didn't like IANA's 
> policies, they could ignore IANA, allocate space to their existing and new 
> customers any way they want, and there wouldn't be anything ICANN could do 
> about it.

This overstates the case, but the tone is unchanged from prior
utterences, so if John wants to depict the ASO to Board movement of
policy as fictional, he can, just as Joly can depict the second "N" in
ICANN as without meaning.

> So even if we were to dislike the RIRs' plans, I wouldn't waste our 
> limited volunteer time on it.  As several of us said before, if this is 
> something of importance to you, engage directly with your local RIR.

I suspect we're well into negative terrain now. This is the second
time this dismissal has been offered. Involvement in ARIN is not the
same as advising the Board. Involvement in ARIN does not constitute
advice to the Board. Advising the Board does not constitute
involvement in ARIN.

Eric