--On Saturday, January 12, 2013 11:36 -0800 David Conrad
<drc(_at_)virtualized(_dot_)org> wrote:
...
No, since addressing is _explicitly_ declared out of scope of
that MoU, see section 4.3 of RFC 2860:
"Two particular assigned spaces present policy issues in
addition to the technical considerations specified by the
IETF: the assignment of domain names, and the assignment of
IP address blocks. These policy issues are outside the
scope of this MOU."
I don't think it is particularly useful or helpful to try to
assert that the IETF did "formally hand over" address
allocation to IANA since, as you know, there are lots of folks
who have, do, and will claim address allocation, as an
operational matter, was never the IETF's to "hand over". What
might be useful/helpful is to try to identify the portions of
RFC 2050 that have any relevance to the IETF and verify that
those portions are covered elsewhere.
David (and Brian and Subramanian),
There are cans of poisonous, vicious vipers (only superficially
resembling cans of worms) that are, IMO, best not opened and
this is, IMO, one of them. The reasons for that are probably as
obvious to you as they are to me and I certainly agree with most
of your last paragraph above. However, I don't think the
section of 2860 that you cite helps very much because there is
another way to read it. That alternate reading, which I believe
is actually the correct one, says that the addressing issues
(and the domain ones) consist of two parts "technical
considerations" which are specified by the IETF and "policy
issues" that are someone else's problem. Indeed, it says
"policy issues in addition to...", which I think recognizes that
those "technical considerations" may have policy implications
and that it is within scope for the IETF to specify those too.
The exclusion is for policy issues that are _not_ part of the
technical considerations.
With the understanding that the boundary that posits is very
fuzzy, I don't think that basic principle has changed
significantly since the MOU and probably not much since RFC
2050. The IETF still has responsibility for the technical
specification of addresses and the policies that narrowly
implies; other policy issues, including the models for
allocations of addresses to those who will use them, belong to
others.
I think it unwise try to define the boundary more precisely than
that. You may recall that an attempt was made to do so more or
less unilaterally at the time the NRO was formed; in my opinion,
that didn't work out especially well for the Internet (YMMD).
If Jon were participating in this conversation today, I'm quite
sure that he would be saying that it is much more important for
the RIRs and the IETF to work together to get the best result
for the Internet rather than putting energy into trying to
legislate or enforce a boundary (whether that effort started in
the IETF or in the RIRs).
best,
john