arin representation

Tue Mar 25 04:03:17 UTC 2014

On Mar 24, 2014, at 6:25 PM, Randy Bush <randy at psg.com> wrote:

> john:
> 
> i appreciate the numbers.  thanks!  and, btw, it has always been a
> pleasure to work with arin staff.
> 
>> Total number of /24s of space directly registered in ARIN's database =
>> 6,644,175 (101.38 /8 equivalents)
>> 
>> Of those: 2,808,621 /24s of space (42.3%) are registered to ARIN
>> members (42.86 /8 equivalents)
>> 
>> Total number of Org IDs with directly registered IPv4 addresses = 26,148  
>> 
>> Of those: 4,520 (17%) are ARIN members
> 
> the arin membership consists of 17% of the address holding organizations
> in the region (plus a few folk who buy membership), and they hold 42% of
> the address space.
> 
> so the 17% (give or take) elect the board [0], and the board, through a
> complex inside-controlled process [1], sets policy for the other
> unrepresented 83%.  and the board and policy wonks set policy and
> contracts, among other things the lrsa and rsa, which place serious
> barriers to becoming a member, such as clauses with arin being able to
> unilaterally change ts&cs arbitrarily. [2] [3]

Many facts not in evidence in that paragraph some of which are outright wrong.

[0] As a member of the nominating committee in question, I will disagree with
your claim that our declining to nominate you constitutes rigging the election.
While I can’t disclose the details due to NDA restrictions on the NomCom,
I will say that in my experience having served on the NomCom several times,
they consider each potential nominee and do not take their duties lightly.

[1] Anyone can make a proposal. If the outsider’s proposal is modified
by the AC, and the proposer does not like the modifications, the proposer
has an available petition process by which they can, if successful, get
the original proposal directly to the community for consideration. IIRC,
this petition process requires 10 or fewer people to support the proposer’s
position in order to succeed.

As to the LRSA/RSA, in fact, the policies cannot be changed unilaterally,
they must be changed by a community driven consensus process except
in the case of emergency policy action by the board. To the best of my
knowledge, the board has only used that emergency authority twice.
Any emergency action is subject to review by the AC within 1 month and
by the community within 6 months.

> and i know the "anyone can partiipate" theory.  but in fact extremely
> few participate, and arin pays many of the policy wonks to fly around
> the world business class and spread the arin regulatory religion.  no
> other rir does this.

Anyone with an email address who chooses to make the effort can easily
participate. The barrier to participation is close to zero. If you have
constructive suggestions on ways to increase participation, they are
welcome.

The other RIRs do, in fact, send representatives to all of the RIR meetings,
so I’m not sure how you can make the above claim, unless your real
concern is the fact issue of the business class travel.

Owen