This is a pretty boring topic. It's been argued many times over. I think the more interesting discussion is: - Where is ARIN and the RIR's headed? - What will ARIN look like 10 years from now?
Mission creep seems to be pervasive in all organizations. ICANN with a headcount of over 100 and a budget exceeding 60MM fulfills a core function that used to be performed by what? 2.5 full-time persons? Is this the fate that awaits ARIN? The main justification for ARIN's size, budget - its existence, even - is that ARIN shepherds a limited set of resources. I find it interesting then, that a number of the pro-IPV6 folk seem to be saying just the opposite when it comes to IPV6. If they're not saying it outright, then the subtext of their argument is that IPV6 is so large, we'll never exhaust it. (Go ahead and give that customer with one computer a chunk of address space that is 2^32 larger than the entire existing IPV4 address space - we'll never miss it.) Well, if that's true; if IPV6 means that address space is no longer a scarce - limited, even - resource, why would there even be an ARIN? Why not collapse all the RIR's into a website that functions more as a title registry than as a justification/vetting organization? After all, IPV6 space is inexhaustible - right. So what if some idiot wants to grab 50 allocations... We'll never miss it. Joe Joe McGuckin ViaNet Communications j...@via.net 650-207-0372 cell 650-213-1302 office 650-969-2124 fax PS: If we want to keep the size of the routing tables down, why isn't ARIN charging MORE for end-user assignments. A lot more, like the same or even more than what allocations cost.
