[rpd] Appeal against softlanding-bis declaration of consensus

Thu Jan 4 10:36:50 UTC 2018

Some thoughts:

Africa has some regions that are doing quite well regarding Internet
Penetration (and thus the use of IP Addresses) and others that are
not... so a generalisation is we are a mix of both first and third world
countries.

Regions that I'd say are more first world would (a generalisation)
include Northern, Southern, Eastern and Indian Ocean regions.
There are though countries with very, very low Internet penetration such
as Eritrea.

There are also many more "small" LIR's in Africa than larger LIR's -
thus the voice at meetings is predominantly attended by smaller LIR's.
Their IPv4 address needs are thus small - so the revised Soft Landing
proposal is in their favour or certainly does them no harm.

Thus, by extension, the revised policy is generally harmful to larger
LIR's. They need larger blocks in order to grow, which this revision of
the policy does not allow. This policy is therefore discriminatory
against larger (which probably implies more successful) LIR's. Thus, the
policy harms success (and larger LIR's who need more space).

So in many ways - what we are seeing is a clash between large,
successful LIR's versus less large and less successful LIR's. I don't
see why success should be punished.

The large LIR's will stop coming back for more space when we enter phase
two of the current Soft Landing system. There will still be plenty of
space for the smaller LIR's. Neither party will be strangled.

Oh - and (rough) Consensus is not the same as Majority...

---------------------

People should also note that other vocal parties, thinking of Owen from
the ARIN region and Sander from the RIPE Region, are both extremely
involved with Policy within their own regions with years of experience
in policy development - they do the equivalent jobs in their region of
our own PDP Co-Chairs. They recognise that our own process has not being
followed properly.

Wishing everyone a prosperous and successful New Year.

On 04/01/2018 10:29, Eucharia Chimbuzor Nwachukwu wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
> I see from Omo response and corresponding response from Andrew that
> there's more to what we are discussing on this matter. From my
> personal observation, I deduce the following:
> 1. Omo and co submitted proposal.
> 2. Andrew and co sort for comprise on the proposal.
> 3. Omo and co refused to negotiate.
> 4. Andrew and co submitted a counter proposal with the aim of ensuring
> that the first proposal doesn't get a concensus.
> 5. Andrew was happy to withdraw his proposal when both were advised to
> do so because it was a dream come true. Omo and co wasn't happy with
> the advice to withdraw because it seemed like Andrew has pushed his
> threat successfully.
> 6. Omo and co amended the proposal and resubmitted and it was never
> turned down by congregation rather the same group who stood against
> the proposal kept objecting. The said proposal seems to satisfy the
> expectations of the larger community including some of the appellants
> who have no issues with the proposal but the process of passing it.
> Yet, a concensus can't be achieved.
> My submission: I want to ask, as a community, do we need to be
> strangulated in this way? Should it be a norm that when your
> negotiation fails, the community stands still? I see nothing bad in
> that proposal and it has to pass in some way. Let us move forward, please!
>
> Wishing all of us a prosperous and focused new year.
>
> Eucharia Nwachukwu
>
>
>
> On Jan 4, 2018 8:28 AM, "Andrew Alston"
> <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com
> <mailto:Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com>> wrote:
>
>     Go right ahead Omo - I did state that if there was no negotiation
>     a counter proposal would be coming - 100 percent I did - because
>     we believed all along on the repeal.
>
>     That reach out to you was an effort to prevent that - but you
>     rejected it.
>
>     But if we want to start sharing other skype logs - maybe I should
>     also respond with the rest of the logs with your co-authors -
>     happy to oblige on that as well - let me know if you wish to play
>     that game - I would rather not - but it’s up to you.
>
>     The fact is - an attempt was made to reach out - and it was openly
>     and transparently stated that if a compromise could not be met - a
>     counter proposal would be coming - I stand by that and always will
>
>     Andrew
>
>
>     Get Outlook for iOS <https://aka.ms/o0ukef>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     *From:* Omo Oaiya <Omo.Oaiya at wacren.net <mailto:Omo.Oaiya at wacren.net>>
>     *Sent:* Thursday, January 4, 2018 10:12:51 AM
>     *To:* Sander Steffann
>     *Cc:* pdwg-appeal at afrinic.net <mailto:pdwg-appeal at afrinic.net>;
>     AfriNIC RPD MList.
>     *Subject:* Re: [rpd] Appeal against softlanding-bis declaration of
>     consensus
>      
>
>
>     On 3 January 2018 at 10:21, Sander Steffann <sander at steffann.nl
>     <mailto:sander at steffann.nl>> wrote:
>
>         Hello rpd and appeals committee,
>
>         I am also one of the contributors to the memorandum sent by
>         Andrew and I fully support its contents. While my personal
>         opinions about the policy proposal are not as strong as those
>         of other opposers, I do recognise that their objections have
>         not been addressed and that therefore there can be no
>         consensus on this proposal.
>
>         Building community-wide consensus, or acknowledging that there
>         is no consensus and withdrawing, are the cornerstones of our
>         policy development process. Violations of that process are a
>         serious danger to the community. Therefore I support this appeal.
>
>         Sincerely,
>         Sander Steffann
>
>
>     The real danger to the community in my view is cohorts who seek to
>     impose their wishes on the AfriNIC community by abusing loopholes
>     in the process in the guise of upholding its tenets.
>
>     My reasons for responding to this thread:
>
>     #1 - I am explicitly named in the appeal as refusing to enter into
>     discussions on competing proposals.  
>     #2 - Reference is also made to a Skype conversation with the
>     SL-BIS authors in the appeal document
>
>         1)    Some background history behind AFPUB-2016-V4-001
>
>             Shortly after AFPUB-2016-V4-001 came out – a second
>             proposal was put to the floor to repeal the current (and
>             now active) soft landing proposal.  This was done after
>             attempts to communicate with the authors of
>             AFPUB-2016-V4-001 around the policy directly failed (sadly
>             these communications were on Skype and the logs are long
>             gone – so since this cannot be proven, it is submitted
>             merely as unsubstantiated background, however the
>             publication of the second policy is well documented fact)
>              
>
>
>     Well, can I provide substantiated background?  I have these Skype
>     logs.  What they show is that violations of AfriNIC processes may
>     have been going on for some time and not always for community
>     interest.
>
>     On 10th Feb 2016, shortly after the Softlanding-BIS proposal was
>     announced on the list, Mr Alston contacted me on Skype to reach
>     what he termed an "amicable agreement”.  He advised that we needed
>     to negotiate otherwise he would post a counterproposal which had 8
>     authors on the lists and claimed that neither would pass as it was
>     very easy to block consensus on policies.   
>
>     The rest is in the archives.  We have since seen the various
>     attempts to make good on this threat to block consensus on
>     SL-BIS.   The proposal ended up being unnecessarily contentious
>     despite its aim for the best interests of the whole community. 
>      Failing to block consensus on the policy, the process which had
>     served well up till now has become the new AfriNIC structure to
>     assault.
>
>     I had considered these logs private but as Mr Alston cites them in
>     his appeal, I am happy to produce.
>
>     Best wishes
>     Omo Oaiya
>
>
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>
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-- 
Mark James ELKINS  -  Posix Systems - (South) Africa
mje at posix.co.za       Tel: +27.128070590  Cell: +27.826010496
For fast, reliable, low cost Internet in ZA: https://ftth.posix.co.za

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