Tom - That’s one way of characterizing the situation, but there’s also a deeper aspect that may not be readily apparent –
The nature of the Internet number registry system is inherently different than that a normal customer / vendor relationship, in that the entire concept underlying the system is that it would be the industry engaged in a form of self-regulation (rather than folks simply receiving a service paid for and defined by the US Government, or procuring some off-the-shelf commercial service); i.e., the users of the Internet number registry system were intended to be the stakeholders that governed each of the regional Internet registries, with each RIR acting a steward of the Internet number resources in its region. At ARIN’s inception, legacy resource holders were provided the same services as before w/o any requirement to pay a fee or enter into a contract – that’s a very reasonable transition approach. Alas, there was no consideration given to further evolution of services/rights for legacy resource holders, as the assumption was that those desiring some form of evolution of their RIR services would become stakeholders and discuss it with the rest of the community via participation in governance of their regional Internet number registry. The concept of number resources that were part of – but somehow external to the governance of the Internet number registry in perpetuity – actually runs contrary to the very concept of self-regulating community-based stewardship, and hence a significant part of disconnect behind the disagreements that we see here. FYI, /John John Curran President and CEO American Registry for Internet Numbers On 19 Sep 2022, at 10:16 AM, Tom Beecher <beec...@beecher.cc<mailto:beec...@beecher.cc>> wrote: I highly recommend that legacy holders who wish to ensure that their rights are respected transfer their registrations to RIPE-NCC, whether they have signed the LRSA or not. For the uninitiated, this is the crux of the disagreements. (Before I begin, this is not a personal shot at Owen or anybody else.) Allocations made before the RIR systems were created have no contracts or covenants attached. Allocations made from the RIRs do. The 'rights' claimed by legacy holders are therefore unenumerated ; their argument is essentially 'nothing says I don't have these rights, so I say I do'. This leads to the current situation, where the legacy holders don't really want any case law or contractual agreements to enumerate what rights they may (or may not) have, because if that happens, they would be prevented from asserting some new right in the future. We all I think acknowledge that technology often races out in front of the law, this situation is no different. Many people have legitimate concerns about policies at different RIRs, and this isn't a shot at those either. But fundamentally, this has meant there has been a 2 tier system since the inception of the RIRs that legacy holders don't have to follow the same rules as the rest of us. On Sun, Sep 18, 2022 at 1:52 PM Owen DeLong via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org<mailto:nanog@nanog.org>> wrote: I highly recommend that legacy holders who wish to ensure that their rights are respected transfer their registrations to RIPE-NCC, whether they have signed the LRSA or not. Transferring to RIPE-NCC as Legacy without Contract will afford you full respect for your rights in your resources in perpetuity (or at least as long as RIPE-NCC lasts) without requiring a contract and without having to pay fees. If you need to establish presence in Europe to satisfy RIPE’s requirements, a cheap virtual machine can be leased for a month or two to get through the process and is never verified or validated thereafter. I was an early signatory to the LRSA thinking I was doing the right thing. After the ARIN board changed end users from fee-per-ORG to fee-per-resource in order to get around the fee cap and bifurcated my org into two orgs (allowing them to charge even more), I came to regret that decision. Since transferring my legacy resources to RIPE-NCC, I have been considerably happier. Owen > On Sep 13, 2022, at 18:24 , Randy Bush <ra...@psg.com<mailto:ra...@psg.com>> > wrote: > >> We strongly encourage all legacy resource holders who have not yet >> signed an LRSA to cover their legacy resources to > > consult a competent lawyer before signing an LRSA > > randy
