* Jim Reid
On 11 Mar 2013, at 17:28, Tore Anderson <tore@fud.no> wrote:
Having recently been told over dinner by an NCC employee something along the lines of «I don't think the RIPE Community quite realises how much effort goes into implementing policy changes», I find this worrisome as well. Especially considering that the Impact Analysis makes an explicit point out of it.
Tore, the whole point of the Impact Analysis stage of the PDP is to help the community to avoid doing things that create unreasonable burdens on the NCC. Or invent policies which are unworkable/illegal/etc. In principle the community could pass a policy which instructs Axel to hand out €100 notes on Dam Square until the NCC is bankrupt or lease offices on the Space Station. So some sort of sanity check in the PDP is needed before policies are finally nailed down.
Now it would be nice if that Impact Analysis could take place earlier in the PDP. But that's impractical. First, it could mean the NCC was "making policy". Which would be bad. Next, until a rough consensus forms around some policy proposal, it's not necessarily clear what that proposal's impact on the NCC (and beyond) is likely to be.
Hi Jim, I'm not quite sure what you're trying to tell me here, or what you think that I was trying to say earlier? I wasn't making any complaint that the Impact Analysis was posted too late, and I already know and agree with everything you wrote (except for calling the Impact Analysis a stage of the PDP, which it is not). The Impact Analysis says, quote, «It is very relevant to note that the implementation of this policy proposal will require a significant effort of co-ordination between the RIPE NCC and the other RIRs». What I was trying to say was: I agree, this is indeed "very relevant to note", and furthermore I find it worrisome - because I was not at all convinced that the IPv4 transfer market is actually large enough to justify a «significant effort». So I'd say that the Impact Analysis did exactly what it was supposed to do in this case, by pointing out an issue that I hadn't considered, so that I may make up a (hopefully) more informed opinion about the proposal than I could without it. That said, since posting my last message I also came across this presentation, which offers a sneak preview some of the transfer stats 2012-05 will give us: http://www.menog.org/presentations/menog-12/127-IPv4_Transfers-RIPE_NCC_Upda... Slide 10 seems to suggest there's been a total of 17 transfers in the last five months. That's *way* fewer than I expected, it does not make sense to me to instruct the NCC to undertake a «significant effort» to expand a so marginal service. Chairs: "do not support today". vh, -- Tore Anderson