Hi, as you may be aware, the RIPE NCC is currently engaged in an activity to establish contact with legacy address space holders, and among other things to set up a contractual relationship between the RIPE NCC and the legacy resource holders. However, it is my opinion that the current RIPE NCC actions with legacy resource holders is destroying some of the valuable trust they have built in the community over the years. It has been said that "the RIPE NCC does what the members tell them to do". That does however not appear to be the case for this action, where the RIPE NCC appears to act in a policy-free zone, simply on executive decision. Despite the RIPE NCCs knowledge that work is ongoing to formulate a policy for this area, they are barging ahead, possibly in an attempt to establish a fait accompli. The message sent to the legacy resource holders does not mention the option which would probably be most preferable to at least most of our customers, namely registering the resources via the LIR at their service provider. One could suspect the RIPE NCC has self-interest in driving up the number of LIRs, to increase the number of paying customers of the RIPE NCC. Some of the documents about the approach with legacy resource holders has mentioned a "stick and carrot" approach. I'll claim that the stick is needlessly sharp and the carrot reeks of decomposition. Explanation: * The stick is primarily the "we cannot guarantee in-addr.arpa name service". Without it, a user will in practice be unable to operate mail servers within the affected address space, which would be a severe blow to those who still actively use their address space. The freezing of the registry data is an inconvenience which will ensure that the accuracy of the data whittles over time, an action initiated by the RIPE NCC no less... Many legacy resource holders have not updated their records in a long time already (many didn't have an actual need to do so), so while inconvenient, it's not as strong a stick as the threat of removal of the in-addr.arpa delegation. It should however be noted that the whittling of the registration data over time also is detrimental for the RIPE community at large, not only for the address space holder. * What's the carrot? Only the removal of the stick from above? What makes the carrot particularly rotten is several things: * The open-ended and unliateral application of "all relevant RIPE NCC policies and procedures". The fear would be "we will mire you or your LIR (or both) down in pointless address policy work to document ancient history, and have the RIPE NCC verify (or deny, as the case may be) all assignments done over time" (applicable where address space has been used in PA-fashion). ...or for PI-style assignments, the assignment itself might be challenged. * The highly uncertain status of the charging scheme in the longer term for the legacy resource holders, where the initial proposal to modify today's model had, with no discussion, abolished the "age based discount", and where current discussion is rampant with "payment per IP address" schemes. The fear is that the RIPE NCC will gouge the legacy resource holders either directly or indirectly, "motivating" them to hand back the resource. * The lack of recognition that these addresses were assigned under a different policy. Anecdotal evidence suggests that at one time you would be handed a class-B instead of 4 class-Cs because there was fear of growth of the routing table. Does the RIPE NCC now want to challenge the assignments? In sum, this makes the RIPE NCC appear more as an extorting bully rather than an agent who has the accuracy of the address register as its foremost priority, and this destroys some of the valuable trust they have built in the community over the years. Regards, - Håvard