ARIN is A Good Thing

Sat Mar 29 15:54:54 UTC 1997

Ehud wrote:

> With no offense to Internic, IANA, Jon, or Jbb.  If I have to pay the
> Internic (and I do) [1] and they can also support IP (and they do) [2]
> and come out $60M black (they do!) then they can damn well fund their [3]
> own damn program to assign the [4] goddamned addresses without billing me.

I added the [#] notations above so I could comment in detail.  [1] you do
not have to pay the InterNIC -- there's always .US, and once IAHC's proposal
gets going, you will be able to select among other alternatives as well (and
my expectation is that .COM et al will become a shared gTLD in 1998).  [2]
you're right that they support IP, but remember the golden rule: whoever has
the gold makes the rules.  Leaving InterNIC to support this means that they
(InterNIC rather than Kim personally or any ISP) get to decide _how_ they
support it.  They don't presently have to do anything you agree with.  [3] 
it's not their program, it was NSF's program most recently, and believe me
when I tell you that you don't WANT it to be "InterNIC's program".  Finally,
[4] to assign is to assert some form of ownership.  I'd much rather see the
ISP's, with Kim continuing as coordinator reporting a board of ISP "regents",
assign and therefore assert ownership of, the address pool.