As one of the authors of this proposal, maybe I should just shut up now, but I would just like to say that the current version of the proposal is a first attempt trying to solve an identified problem. Apparently it became a bit too complex. Another comment below. On Fri, 25 Oct 2013, Jan Ingvoldstad wrote:
On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 8:03 PM, Gert Doering <gert@space.net> wrote: Dear Address Policy WG,
On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 04:36:24PM +0200, Marco Schmidt wrote:
A proposed change to RIPE Documents ripe-589, "IPv6 Address Allocation and Assignment Policy", ripe-451, "IPv6 Address Space Policy For Internet Exchange Points" and ripe-233, "IPv6 Addresses for Internet Root Servers In The RIPE Region" is now available for discussion. [..] We encourage you to review this proposal and send your comments to <address-policy-wg@ripe.net> before 25 October 2013.
The discussion phase for this proposal is now over, but after the feedback received at the RIPE meeting in Athens (and here on the list, even if in the wrong thread :) ) the chairs have deviced to take a step back, and re-state the fundamental "do we want to go there?" question (and extend the discussion phase by +4 weeks).
The proposal aims to unify IPv6 PA and IPv6 PI space into one kind of address space, "IPv6 addresses". This is the goal.
The idea to go there came from various people in the community, mostly for one reason - having two differently "coloured" addresses that do the same thing, routingwise, but follow different policies and have different strings attached, creates quite some confusion for the folks out there that can no longer be nicely separated into "ISPs" (->become RIPE members, use PA) and "end-users" (->use PI, if BGP-based multihoming and/or upstream independence is required).
In my opinion, this distinction is not particularly useful in itself, and could very well be a floating definition.
Coming from the DNS registrar side, I cannot help thinking that looking at the registry/registrar model might be beneficial for making things clearer for people out there.
One way of seeing this, is that the LIRs are "registrars" for IP address space, and that their role could simply be about registering and brokering assignments and allocations for the RIR.
An ISP or an "end user" then becomes an unnecessary distinction, as they would both have to go to a LIR to get their address space, and it's just a matter of placing a request for the correct size, at the discretion of the applicant and the LIR.
Mind you, I think this is mostly about perspective, but if we could use the similarities with DNS registrations, then end customers (ISPs or whatever) might have less confusion.
I could very well be wrong.
I (personally) think you are right. You don't have so set up a domain name registrar if you just want to use a couple of domain names. We regularly see entities out there who just want some address space. Sometimes just a small space and sometimes a very space. I think if would be beneficial if they had an option to ask a registrar (LIR) to do the book keeping for them. Best Regards, Daniel Stolpe _________________________________________________________________________________ Daniel Stolpe Tel: 08 - 688 11 81 stolpe@resilans.se Resilans AB Fax: 08 - 55 00 21 63 http://www.resilans.se/ Box 13 054 556741-1193 103 02 Stockholm