[rpd] [pdwg-appeal] SoftLanding BIS notice of intent to appeal

[Owen DeLong]

> On Jan 23, 2018, at 2:06 AM, Badru Ntege <badru.ntege at nftconsult.com> wrote:
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> On 1/22/18, 8:54 PM, "Owen DeLong" <owen at delong.com> wrote:
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>    Once again, you engage in ad hominem instead of substance. 
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>    My perspective is that addressed are community resources to be used to deploy internet services to end users. My belief is that addresses have no utility whatsoever sitting on a shelf in the registry if there is a legitimate need for them to be used by end users. My belief is that it is a disservice to this community to protect a free pool from real end users with legitimate need for the sake of enabling some fictitious entity to gain some advantage later over a clear and present entity attempting to deliver service today. 
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> So Owen 
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> Based on your submission above a Chinese request for IP’s or an American request for IP’s which is genuinely based on need should be honored.  Though you did not say that exactly one could read it that way.

While I enjoy a good reductio ad absurdum as much as the next guy, this really is a case of that.

I’m not in favor of issuing addresses outside of policy. Since policy precludes issuing to a Chinese request or an American request, I thought it went without saying that I’m not supporting that. However, if you feel that clarification of my statement is necessary, now you have it.

> However, we have other policies around that which cover regions etc and we have worked based on that.  So we can deny resources to a genuine need and we have been doing that for years and so has every other RIR.  The word “legitimate” cannot exist on its own when we are discussing resources.

Yes. Obviously (to virtually everyone on the list except possibly you, Badru), I meant legitimate requests within the existing policy body.

> When Afrinic was created and a pool of resources assigned to it, there were definitely other legitimate users around the world.  

Yes, and you will notice that I have supported most of those policies in the history of AfriNIC.

> I actually believe the disservice to the community are the shenanigans of a disgruntled few trying to hold an entire community ransom.

Huh? Nobody is holding anyone ransom. There are members of the community who are opposed to the policy and feel that our objections have not been legitimately addressed. Indeed, Jackson’s most recent post comes closer than any previous post and is the first one to engage in actual debate of the issue instead of focusing on ad hominem or characterization of the opposition in a negative light.

> We are community of nearly 1 billion people with over 1000 members (I stand to be corrected) of Afrinic.  

Yes, but I will point out that the number of people who have spoken in opposition to this policy in one way or another is nearly equal to the number who have spoken in support of it.

> We have spent too much time on this issue.  

I agree, yet we must continue until such time as we achieve a legitimate outcome from the process.

> The Co-chairs need to be respected and we need to move on.

I respect the co-chairs, but I expect them to do their job. In this case they failed either through ignorance (possibly in the first instance) or malice (almost certainly based on their post-last-call opinion). Their job is to gauge the level of consensus in the community. Consensus being defined as the absence of sustained objections which have not been addressed. The large number of objections expressed prior to and during the last call period on this policy shows that there simply is not consensus for this policy.

> Those who do not like this policy should present an alternative to the community.  

This has been done. The community expressed a desire for both of these policies to be withdrawn and the alternative was, in respect to the community withdrawn as requested.

Another alternative still remains on the table… The existing status quo is perfectly acceptable as far as I am concerned. I won’t speak for the other opponents of SL-BIS as we are not (contrary to popular opinion) a unified cooperative aimed at a single objective. We have a variety of different reasons we are opposed to SL-BIS and a variety of different organizational and/or personal goals.

Jackson is quite mistaken when he refers to Andrew Alston as “our convener”. No such role exists and we are not a unified collective group.

> If we do not draw a line here Next we will have legal challenges to whether countries are actually in the African region, etc.  Policy making has never been an exact science and we should not try to make it that now.

And we return to reductio ad absurdum.

What line would that be? There is a need to recognize that this policy has not achieved consensus in this community. There is a need to admit that the co-chairs acted against the community by declaring consensus where legitimate sustained objections remained unaddressed. Indeed, if there is a line which needs to be drawn, it is one which shows that we will not accept such an attack on the integrity of the PDP even when it comes from (or is at least supported by) the co-chairs themselves.

Owen