[AfriNIC-rpd] Comments about AFPUB-2010-GEN-005

[sm+afrinic at elandsys.com]

Hello,

These are individual comments about AFPUB-2010-GEN-005.  It is meant 
to encourage discussion of the process so that the community has a 
better understanding of the implementation of AFPUB-2010-GEN-005.

AfriNIC operates the Resource Policy Discussion mailing list (RPD) 
where policy proposals are discussed, the archive for the mailing 
list, and it also provides the resources for running the Public 
Policy Meeting.  There is currently a Policy Liaison from AfriNIC who 
provides administrative support to the two (Interim) Chairs, 
including  minute taking at Public Policy Meeting.

As mentioned in Section 5, policy proposals are submitted to the 
Resource Policy Discussion mailing list by the author.  If there are 
multiple authors, the proposal can be posted by one of the 
authors.  During the discussion about AFPUB-2010-GEN-005, that 
requirement was requested by the community.

The question of unique identifier for a proposal has been left to 
AfriNIC.  During the last Public Policy Meeting, I found the 
identifiers used for the "Global Policy for IPv4 Allocations by the 
IANA Post Exhaustion" confusing to follow as it jumped from 
AFPUB-2010-v4-003 to AFPUB-2010-v4-006.  I suggest that AfriNIC comes 
up with a better scheme for identifying the different versions of a 
proposal for ease of reference.

It would be useful if there was also a policy manual which 
incorporates all existing policies.

Section 5.1 mentions that:

   "The author(s) shall make the necessary changes to the draft policy
    according to the feedback received."

AFPUB-2010-GEN-007 is a case where the author did modify the proposal 
based on feedback from the community.  If the author of a proposal 
does not perform any updates, the proposal expires and is no longer 
considered as a proposal to be discussed.

Section 5.2 mentions that:

   "No change can be made to a draft policy within one week of the meeting.
    This is so that a stable version of the draft policy can be considered
    at the meeting."

During a discussion about a proposal, it was pointed out that the 
community needed more time to determine whether the changes mentioned 
by the author is minor or major.  When changes are major, the 
community may need more time to analyze a proposal.

The rationale for the "no change" is to give the community ample time 
to review a proposal and understand its implications.  Previously, 
authors would make changes to a proposal a few days before a Public 
Policy Meeting.  According to AFPUB-2010-GEN-005, the author is not 
allowed to make such changes.  That doesn't prevent the community 
from suggesting changes during the Public Policy Meeting.  If an 
issue is raised, the author can always suggest a change to address it.

Section 5.5 mentions that:

   "The implementation date should be less than six months after the end of
    the Last Call unless a waiver is requested."

That might be a issue for global policies as it may take longer than 
that for them to be approved by all RIRs.  It could be solved by 
adding a clause to such proposals to specify when they take effect if 
they are adopted as a policy within the AfriNIC region.

There was some discussion about using Section 7 to adopt a policy in 
the case of an emergency.  During the discussions leading to 
AFPUB-2010-GEN-005, I argued that it is better not to attempt to 
define what constitutes an emergency.  I also mentioned during the 
last Public Policy Meeting that this clause should not be abused.

Working Group Chairs could use the following procedure:

  (a) Ask the author of the proposal or anyone who believes that 
Section 7 should
      be invoked to post the request to the Resource Policy 
Discussion mailing list.

  (b) The Working Group Chairs ask the Policy Development Working Group for
      substantive comments about the request.

  (c) The Working Group Chairs determine whether the variance is 
needed and post
      a message to the Resource Policy Discussion mailing list about their
      decision together with an explanation.

AFPUB-2010-GEN-005 does not discuss about the question of conflict 
between the two Chairs.  I suggest that the Chairs ask the community 
for comments to get a better perspective of the problem.  The Chairs 
bear the responsibility to make the process work and to ensure that 
their decisions have the consensus of the community.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy