[rpd] FW: Opposition to the changes in the AfriNIC Soft Landing Policy

Tue Dec 5 06:19:57 UTC 2017

Badru,

Your email shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the policy process of an organization which you were chairperson of – which is positively scary.

The process of finding consensus is predicated on there be no sustained and unaddressed objections – it does not mean that the objections have had to have been resolved – it means they have had to have been addressed – and after that – it comes down to if there is general agreement.

Considering that the first step in this case is simply not the case – and there are a large number of entirely unaddressed objections which the authors have *never* addressed consensus could not be declared and we should not be in last call – hence – the appeal must proceed.

Certain facts:

  1.  In Mauritius a number of people went to the microphone and requested the authors to withdraw the policy in the interests of finding common ground with the authors of another policy and working together on a new policy
  2.  The authors of softlanding-bis have refused to do that – nor have they ever actually addressed those requests or objections – which are documented on the video of the PDP meeting in Mauritius
  3.  In Kenya – similar requests were made by multiple people – again – clearly documented on the video footage of the Kenyan PDP
  4.  Again – Those were never addressed
  5.  The issue of the fact that certain ISP’s have deployed infrastructure that they need to number *today* was raised at the Microphone – both in Kenya and in Mauritius – the authors have never addressed this issue
  6.  An objection was raised at the microphone in both Kenya and Mauritius over the fact that the policy penalizes the consumers of services in areas that are developed and have infrastructure that is ready to be used, but now cannot be used because the institutions who have deployed said infrastructure cannot get space – This has never been spoken to or addressed – again – this is on record on the video footage for the PDP meeting in both Kenya and Mauritius.

There are a host of others that I can refer to – but effectively – there cannot be consensus while these issues remain not even resolved – but entirely unaddressed and unanswered.  Hence – the co-chairs err’ed in their decision to declare consensus, hence, failing a withdrawl of the decision to proceed to last call – the appeal process must continue and shall not be withdrawn – irrespective of the outcome of the last call process.  Because this appeal is about process, and even should the authors withdraw now, effectively rendering the appeal mute – it is important that this appeal continue in the absence of a withdrawl by the co-chairs of an erroneous decision to avoid similar mistakes in the future.

Hence - until such time as the last call decision is reversed – the appeal – as is documented and permitted by the process – will stand and will go through the motions

Andrew

From: Badru Ntege <badru.ntege at nftconsult.com>
Date: Tuesday, 5 December 2017 at 04:42
To: Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com>
Cc: "AfriNIC RPD MList." <rpd at afrinic.net>
Subject: Re: [rpd] FW: Opposition to the changes in the AfriNIC Soft Landing Policy

Members

The process was  designed to look for the majority in support. And has been done this way for years It’s natural that different people will always see issues from different perspectives.

The process has worked for the global numbering ecosystem for years and we have all found ourselves on one side or the other at different times.

Let’s not attack the process because it has not worked for some.  That would not be moving us forward.  Those who feel they can convince more members to support an alternative position should use the same process to get to the desired outcome.

Decisions made can always be changed through the same process.

I suggest we drop the petition and return to dialogue through the process.

This has always been an inclusive community so all those with different positions should use the prescribed channels to educate the rest and hopefully redress what they assume as a wrong decision

Regards

Sent from my iPhone

On 5 Dec 2017, at 04:34, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com<mailto:owen at delong.com>> wrote:

On Dec 4, 2017, at 17:06 , Komi Elitcha <kmw.elitcha at gmail.com<mailto:kmw.elitcha at gmail.com>> wrote:

Saul,

Le 4 déc. 2017 11:31, "Saul Stein" <saul at enetworks.co.za<mailto:saul at enetworks.co.za>> a écrit :
Dear All,
I am seeing a large number or people who are against this policy. Far more than the 3 (if that) that have supported it. So I really do not see how and where the public consensus came from to pass this policy. The majority have spoken and are continuing to do so against this policy.

…there does seem to be a planned campaign.   Quite understandable for me.  It is the claim by some of the “multitude” that the Co-chairs did not follow process that is not quite clear to me.

Komi,

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Most of the sustained objections were not addressed and clearly remain (as evidenced by the “multitude” opposing the last call).

In the face of such objections, how can the co-chairs legitimately declare that consensus was reached.

Absent such consensus, last call is out of order according to the PDP.

Therefore, by either declaring a consensus which did not exist, or, by sending to last call without consensus, the Co-chairs failed in their duty and did not follow the process.

I hoe this clarifies things for you.

This policy proposal  has been discussed since February  2016 and has evolved a lot and address the main issues. So far there is no new major issues raised since this campaign started and this consolidates cochairs  decisions.

No, many of the core issues remain. It has not addressed the main issues despite repeated false claims that it has.

It has addressed some issues, but fundamentally, the core issues upon which Andrew and I base our objections remain a core intent of the proposal, so it is impossible to preserve the integrity of the proposal and address those issues.

RFC7282  sections 6 and 7 say:

 6.  One hundred people for and five people against might not be rough consensus

7.  Five people for and one hundred people against might still be rough consensus

Sure. But it also states in section 2:

2<https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7282#section-2>.  Lack of disagreement is more important than agreement

   A working group comes to a technical question of whether to use

   format A or format B for a particular data structure.  The chair

   notices that a number of experienced people think format A is a good

   choice.  The chair asks on the mailing list, "Is everyone OK with

   format A?"  Inevitably, a number of people object to format A for one

   or another technical reason.  The chair then says, "It sounds like we

   don't have consensus to use format A.  Is everyone OK with format B?"

   This time even more people object to format B, on different technical

   grounds.  The chair, not having agreement on either format A or

   format B, is left perplexed, thinking the working group has

   deadlocked.

   The problem that the chair got themselves into was thinking that what

   they were searching for was agreement.  "After all", thinks the

   chair, "consensus is a matter of getting everyone to agree, so asking

   whether everyone agrees is what the chair ought to do.  And if lots

   of people disagree, there's no consensus."  But _determining_

   consensus and _coming to_ consensus are different things than

   _having_ consensus.

We definitely have no lack of disagreement, so it is hard to imagine a situation
in which we could claim to have consensus.

Even rough consensus requires that all objections be addressed (though not necessarily
accommodated). While I suppose you could argue that dismissing our objections outright
constitutes addressing them, I really don’t think that’s what the IETF has in mind
and I think it’s a pretty flawed approach to policy development or rough consensus
in general.

Most of us are unable to be professional meeting attenders and often can’t afford the hours to spend away from our days jobs to follow online. Thus mailing lists offer us the time to catch-up after hours when we have time. Even so, again, where are all the supporters? We’re only seeing numerous people rejecting the proposal

As to the these signed documents that Andrew is sending, as one doesn’t need to be a member of AFRINIC to have a say in the RDP, so anyone call really have their say. As to the process and what has been discussed, the RPD isn’t the only mailing list and there have been a comments on local mailing lists.

The majority of people and real jobs (paid for by an employer) and don’t have the time to follow and read everything, but do talk to others and keep up to date with what is going in. Not to be able to receive more than a /18 now or a /22 in phase two in a two hear period, doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realise that it will kill any business and more importantly inhibit growth. It is well known, giving access to the internet, increases education, knowledge and quality of life thus reducing unemployment –all things that we really need to resolve in Africa. Why would any thinking person want to limit this?

We should not forget that the intent in soft-landing is transition to IPv6.  Or is IPv4 now the future?

If that is your intent, then the policy is quite thoroughly flawed because this policy does absolutely nothing to facilitate or foster that transition. Instead, it creates an artificially long life for IPv4 at the cost of depriving existing networks of resources in order to dole out dribs and drabs of IPv4 resources to newcomers for decades to come. Such an approach is the very antithesis of your stated intent and is, in fact, a major reason for much of the opposition to this proposal.

I heard the same folks saying IPv4 is dead/obsolete but now I am hearing we need IPv4.

You don’t hear me saying I need more IPv4 resources, but I am saying that the need for IPv4 that some organizations have today is real and that the supposed need of organizations that won’t exist for decades on which this policy proposal is based is specious at best because the IPv6 transition will make it so unless we so utterly fail at the IPv6 transition that the internet becomes an unworkable, unusable conglomeration of overpriced IPv4 resources.

One would expect that only laggards who don’t yet have real networks to run would be thinking of Phase 2 at this point.

Quite the opposite, actually. Only laggards who don’t yet have real networks to run can possibly benefit from this proposal, while those with real networks to run today are faced with the very real possibility that phase 2 could be triggered very soon.

The bottom line here is that this  shouldn’t have reached last call because of the lack unaddressed objections going back at least two years. It has been clear from the numerous objections that there is no consensus on this policy.

Chairs, please think and hear what the community are saying and act accordingly. This is wasting large amounts for time that could be used in other areas!

Let’s sell the resource to members, AFRINIC can then either reduce all our fees (to get inline with the other RIRs) from the extra revenue they are making and we get on with v6 deployment

Sell?   I am confused.  Is it about fees now?  No longer IPv4 obsolescence and IPv6 uptake?  Is there anything that stops forward looking network managers like yourself from deploying v6 now?

I think Saul’s statement reflects a somewhat limited understanding of the true relationship between AfriNIC and resource holders. I’m glad to see him speaking up and think we should encourage and educate him rather than ridicule some small aspect of ignorance he happens to display in the process.

Owen

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