[rpd] Decisions and summary on policy proposals discussed during the online Policy meeting (AFRINIC 32)

[JORDI PALET MARTINEZ]

Hi Pascal,

 

This is not what happened in Luanda. Let’s see the full history, because it shows that is not right that when there is already a proposal and is getting the community inputs, others try to compete without previous contact with the authors of the 1st one.

 

I had the 1st policy proposal on Inter-RIRs way ahead Luanda.

 

To have some context. Previously, in Tunisia authors from another proposal asked me to avoid competing them (even if his proposal was not reaching consensus for several years) in a PDP update  proposal. I withdraw my proposal to show my good faith. The only reason why I sent that proposal is because they were not responding to my inputs and they told me in the mic that they were not reading the mailing list.

 

Suddenly, before Luanda, the same authors that complained to me in Tunisia, sent a new Inter-RIR proposal, instead of trying to provide inputs to improve mine. Then other authors sent a 3rd proposal.

 

I expect that if a proposal is not reaching consensus, and authors are not responding to inputs is fine to have other set of authors sending other proposals, but not if the 1st one is responding and getting the community inputs on board.

 

Before Luanda I asked the chairs and the staff to organize a call to try to merge the proposals, there was no response. In Luanda I tried again, and only one set of authors participated. We could not with just 2 days before the meeting, make a new version.

 

I’m sure the chairs tried their best in good faith, and is good to be innovative, but not jumping over the rules.

 

Regards,

Jordi

@jordipalet

 

 

 

El 23/9/20 14:54, "Paschal Ochang" <pascosoft at gmail.com> escribió:

 

Hello all, 

 

I can remember in Luanda there was an appeal by the cochairs for all the policy authors especially resource transfer related policies to work together but that appeal was thrown down the drain. We as a community cannot continue to have multiple policies deliberating on the same issue which I think is not healthy considering the pile up of policies to discuss in meetings. 

 

That being said I think some members in the community are beginning to loose track of the essence of contributions and criticism as a way of fine-tuning a policy. 

 

I believe most of us here will prefer to be authors of thousands of proposals but will not want to be a cochair considering the uphill task involved in decision making to please a diverse range of ideas. For me the analysis given for the decisions was not imposed but was derived from facts from discussions in a limited amount of time.

 

When we start clamouring about voiding the PDP it sounds funny because I believe it still balls down to best practices sometimes when it comes to decision making. I think the cochairs where and have been innovative in their approach which is welcomed.

 

I don't think they has been any policy meeting i have attended that the decision by the cochairs was okay to all members of the community. 


On Wednesday, September 23, 2020, Taiwo Oyewande <taiwo.oyewande88 at gmail.com> wrote:

Dear all,

I understand that a decision making process is difficult and can not satisfy all.

 

I have been following the list closely on ALL policy discussions and i can clearly state that 90% (if not all) points discussed previously on the mailing list were discussed in meeting, therefore it is safe to say the points on the mailing list were considered.

 

I personally think the co-chairs had an herculean task of gathering and discussing all points raised by the community and presenting them in such a short period of time.  Let us start by applauding their good job. In previous meetings, consensus or no consensus was declared without reason, but this time, the cochairs took it a step further to present and analyse the points raised. 

 

There were 3 policies discussing transfer of resources. The co-chairs decided to stop the rat race and allow the community focus on one of these policies so that we can all achieve a common goal ( which is development of the AFrican region in the internet community). I think this bold move should be applauded. I will like to clearly state that my belief is that all community members are working towards a better region and not personal gain, therefore i will encourage us all to focus on a way forward.

@gregorie’s points clearly states the issues raised to be corrected on the “Resource transfer policy” and i will like to assure the community that these changes are being effected.

Please all, let us focus on community development and progress and stop unnecessary tongue lashing.

 

Kind regards

 

Taiwo from Africa

 

 

 




On 23 Sep 2020, at 06:34, Ibeanusi Elvis <ibeanusielvis at gmail.com> wrote:



Dear community, 

 

I would say that we should all learn to appreciate the excessive work and effort being invested by the Chairs and the PDWG on maintaining a functional and effective operational environment. On the other hand, as earlier pointed out, it is better to accept the decisions outlined by the co-chairs on behalf of the community and the PDWG in good faith and not cherry pick, demonize or even become antagonistic towards them. After an in depth review of all the policies, putting into consideration and deliberation the issues brought up by the community through the RDP platform and during the AFRINIC Internet Summit Online 2020, either in the form of comments or questions, and never forget, the AFRINIC Policy Impact assessment. I believe that the co-chairs had all the necessary tools and facts to come to the conclusion they arrived at, unbiased. 

 

@Fernando, regarding your comment " "Cochairs appear to be deciding and injecting new issues not previously mentioned in working group. Not following due process of hearing authors and the hurry to decide for working group is unacceptable. The co chairs report must rather provide an open issues list of outstanding issues for working group to deliberate on. There had been no attempt by co chairs to gauge consensus throughout the meeting. "

 

I concur that this is very unfair and unjust, likewise disapproving of the immense work that the co-chairs and the PDWG consistently put into to arrive at a comprehensive decision. They are working for the best of the community and the AFRINIC organization in general but instead you are accusing them of not following "Due Process" and making "Hasty and Unacceptable Decisions". Finally, let's try and appreciate their work rather than devaluing their time and effort. 

 

Best regards,

Ibeanusi Elvis .C.

 

 

On Wed, Sep 23, 2020 at 6:58 AM lucilla fornaro <lucillafornarosawamoto at gmail.com> wrote:

Hello everyone,

 

 

The chairs do not get appreciated enough for the massive workload of voluntary job that they are doing for the community. They obviously want to give the community enough time to thoughtfully discuss the matters on hand, since they merely announced the starting date and didn’t even announce when it ends, and that is a very good thing. But still, there you are, accusing them of violation. Such a shame.

 

Regards,

 

Lucilla 

 

Da: ABDULKARIM OLOYEDE <oloyede.aa at unilorin.edu.ng>
Inviato: Wednesday, September 23, 2020 6:44:14 AM
A: Noah <noah at neo.co.tz>
Cc: rpd List <rpd at afrinic.net>
Oggetto: Re: [rpd] Decisions and summary on policy proposals discussed during the online Policy meeting (AFRINIC 32) 

 

 Dear Friend Noah, 

Thanks to Gaby she already help out.

I can also add that the Last call is for two weeks. If we see the need we can extend it.

Co-Chair PDWG.

 

 

On Tue, Sep 22, 2020 at 2:09 PM Noah <noah at neo.co.tz> wrote:

Attention WG,

I have also noted more violations of the PDP by Co-Chairs  from the last meeting. 

Section 3.4.3 of pdp says: “The Last Call period shall be at least two weeks."

The Co-Chairs did not follow this and did not specify the duration of the last call for the proposals going to the last call.

Furthermore, which documents are to be discussed at this unspecified last call?  

Why this rush?  This abuse of the PDP must stop.

./noah

neo - network engineering and operations

 

 

On Mon, Sep 21, 2020 at 7:39 PM Gregoire EHOUMI via RPD <rpd at afrinic.net> wrote:

Dear Co-chairs and WG 


During the AFRINIC-32 PPM which was held last week, the proceedings and decisions made by cochairs, raised many concerns. Below are some of them.
The video of the meeting is publicly available.


Concern-1  objections management
————
cochairs chose some objections raised and even not-raised, did not say why comments and explanations provided by authors and the participants on the raised and discussed issues were unsatisfactory. 

Few examples

⁃ Abuse contact proposal

The valid and unresolved objections according to co-chairs decisions were:
• Definition of abuse
• GDPR compliance 
• Impact of legacy resources


⁃ RPKI ROAs for Unallocated and Unassigned AFRINIC Address Spaces 

The valid and unresolved objections according to cochairs were:
• AS0 ROA validity
• Certain fear in the community that this proposal may help staff reclaim resources if members failed to pay membership fees.
• Lack of a certain mitigation provision APNIC  has in their policy

-WG guidelines and procedures

The valid and unresolved objections according to cochairs were:

• the proposed appointment of cochairs  by consensus will create more problems for this community. 
• Cochairs should not have hands in consensus 
• also Board interference.

⁃ Inter-RIR transfer proposals 

On the 3 proposals being discussed 

Cochairs decided that :
• one is far from reaching consensus as incompatible with ARIN as per staff.
• The other 2 are closer



Concern-2 fairness in the proceeding 
——————————————————
• When rendering their decisions and contrary to what was announced, Cochairs did not question all authors of transfer policy proposals showing bias

• Staff’s demand to the WG  to allow them to request official compatibility analysis on each of the proposals from other RIRs was denied 

• Authors were not even given chance to respond to the point with ARIN 


Concern-3 unilateral decisions by cochairs
————————————————————
• cochairs decided that Afrinic service region need an inter-RIR transfer policy as matter as urgency  and can’t wait anymore 

• Cochairs decided that among the 3 proposals, the one which aims to establish an efficient and business-friendly mechanism to allow a number of resources to be transferred from/to other regions, should be pushed forward 

• Cochairs refused to consider the issues and the implementation challenges  raised by the staff impact assessment on proposal

• Cochairs decided on which amendments should be made to the selected proposal  for it to move forward.

1- Add 12 months delay for a source to be eligible to receive allocation from AFRINIC

2- Remove clause for legacy status after transfer 

3-Fix clarity on notifications to the other RIRs after the transfer

It is obvious that 1) contradicts both problem statement and solution of the proposal preferred by cochairs.

Cochairs appear to be deciding and injecting new issues not previously mentioned in working group. Not following due process of hearing authors and the hurry to decide for working group is unacceptable. The cochairs report must rather provide an open issues list of outstanding issues for working group to deliberate on. There had been no attempt by cochairs to gauge consensus throughout the meeting. 

In the view of all these violations of the PDP, I urge you to reconsider all decisions made during the last PPM and give chance to the WG to appropriately address the open issues and come to the best conclusions for the region.

--
Gregoire Ehoumi ( on behalf of the authors of WG guidelines and procedures and AFRINIC Number Ressources transfer proposals)

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: ABDULKARIM OLOYEDE <oloyede.aa at unilorin.edu.ng> 

Date: 2020-09-20 8:06 p.m. (GMT-05:00) 

To: rpd List <rpd at afrinic.net> 

Subject: [rpd] Decisions and summary on policy proposals discussed during the online Policy meeting (AFRINIC 32) 

 


Dear PDWG Members,

 Please find below a summary for each of the proposal discussed during the just concluded online policy meeting of AFRINIC 32  

1.       Simple PDP Update 

This policy defines consensus. It also proposes that a policy discussed at the PPM does not need to come back for another PPM for the Co-chairs to arrive at a decision. This can help in streamlining the work during the PPM and encourages people to use the mailing list. 

There were lots of irrelevant objections on the mailing list such as someone registering many emails. We believe that this does not matter because rough consensus is not about numbers but quality objections.

However, there is strong opposition to this policy based on the following: 

a.                   Oppose the policy because of the way the consensus is reached. This proposal proposes that the consensus be reached through a balance of the mailing list/forum and not at the PPM. This endangers fair consensus and hijacks the policymaking process. Based on experience, it is during the PPM that most community members focus on policies. 

b.                  Issues around how the chairs should drop proposals.

c.                   Trust in the mailing list: Some strongly believe that anonymous contribution should be allowed while some believes it should not.

d.                  Issues around having more than 1 PPM per year and Online PPM because of volunteer burnout. We are all volunteers and it’s a night job for us. More PPMs mean more time to volunteer and more chances for burnouts 

e.                  Some members of the Community thinks only burning or polarizing issues should be brought to the PPM.

Chairs Decision:   No Consensus

 

 

2.       PDP Working Group 

This proposal aims at allowing most of the decisions including chair elections to be determined via consensus.  This can be reasonable when the community has the same goal. However, there were a number of objections to it. These are:

a.                   Entrusting the WG to make their decisions by consensus and the appointment of their co-chairs by consensus do not make sense and is only utopic.

b.                  People are not policy proposals, and thus choosing by consensus is splitting hairs with the election process we already have. Save the consensus for the proposals, and the election for people.

c.                   Consensus may even take months, and this can’t fly when we want to put people in the vacant roles.

d.                  Co-chairs should not have a hand in the consensus, but only sit back and let the community decide for themselves. Additionally, the consensus process is not feasible with a deadline.

e.                  Focus on polishing the current electoral process instead of complicating other untested forms of “election”.

f.                    The current status quo’s election should be the only option in choosing for the roles, and not through less transparent means.

g.                   Board would be interfering too much on issues that deal with PDP

Chairs Decision:    No Consensus

 

3.       Chairs Election Process 

This proposal aims at introducing an online voting system for the Co-Chairs election. The following are the opposition to this proposal. 

a.                   This policy reduces participation. Equal representation is violated because the board has unprecedented power. 

b.                  There is also not enough information on the logistics of the vote (e-voting).

c.                   There is a contradiction on when the term ends during the meeting. “The term ends during the first PPM corresponding to the end of the term for which they were appointed” is not clear enough, and “A term may begin or end no sooner than the first day of the PPM and no later than the last day of the PPM as determined by mutual agreement of the current Chair and the new Chair” contradicts each other.

d.                  Gender restriction on 3.3.1.3 , some community members argue it is impractical and maybe even unfair if we force both chairs to have different genders.

e.                  Issues around which voter's register should be adopted 

Chairs Decision: No Consensus

 

4.       Board Prerogatives 

This proposal aims at clarifying how the board and the PDWG  works. However, there were a few oppositions to this proposal except for a specific section.  

a.                   It seems like a piecemeal approach to dealing with issues. 

b.                  Opposition to the section below

“As an exception of the preceding paragraph, in the absence of elections processes for aspects related to the PDP (co-chairs, appeal committee), those aspects will be still handled by the board in consultation with the community. However, this is also a temporary measure and also specific draft policy proposals should be introduced for that”. The authors agreed to remove the above section hence

Chairs Decision: Consensus provided the above section is removed 

 

5.       Policy Compliance Dashboard

The policy proposal seeks to provide a framework or a policy compliance dashboard be developed by AFRINIC and incorporated in myAFRINIC (and future member’s communication platforms).  It will allow a periodic review of the policy compliance status of each member. It will also enable members to receive automated notifications for any issue. Staff will receive repeated warnings of lack of compliance or severe violations enshrined in the CPM. However, there are several oppositions to this proposal, such as:

a.                   This policy seems to be redundant of the status quo as violations are already checked and processed by the human staff.

b.                  There is already an existing system of guidelines on keeping track of the violations of members.

c.                   The policy is not binding and does not enforce members actually to follow the rules and not violate policies. 

d.                  Ignorance could be a convenient excuse for violations because one could claim that they never got notified about their violations.

e.                  There is no comprehensive system on how the board should take proper actions once members violate policies, nor does it give guidelines based on the severity of the violations.

f.                    This policy takes away resources that could be used for more beneficial pursuits to AFRINIC for something existing in the system.

g.                   It an administrative  process, and this should be left to staff

Chairs Decision:  NO rough Consensus

 

6.       Abuse Contact Update 

The proposal makes it mandatory for AFRINIC to include in each resource registration, a contact where network abuse from users of those resources will be reported.  The proposal whois DB attribute (abuse-c) to be used to publish abuse public contact information. There’s also a process to ensure that the recipient must receive abuse report and that contacts are validated by AFRINIC regularly. However, there some opposition to the proposal there are:

a.                   Staff analysis on how it affects legacy holder not conclusive  (not sure why this should affect legacy holders) 

b.                  The proposal doesn’t state what will be the consequences of one member fails to comply. Why are we creating the abuse contact when there is no consequence for not providing the abuse contact 

c.                   Abuse contact email and issues with GDPR concerning the whois database

d.                  No proper definition of the term Abuse

e.                  To force members to reply to their abuse email is not in the scope of AFRINIC.

Chairs Decision: No rough consensus 

 

7.       RPKI ROAs for Unallocated and Unassigned AFRINIC Address Space

The proposal instructs AFRINIC to create ROAs for all unallocated and unassigned address space under its control. This will enable networks performing RPKI-based BGP Origin Validation to easily reject all the bogon announcements covering resources managed by AFRINIC. However, there are many oppositions such as: 

a.                   Allowing resource holders to create AS0/ ROA will lead to an increase of even more invalid prefixes in the routing table.

b.                  Revocation time of AS0 state, and the time for new allocation doesn’t match. 

c.                   Other RIRs don’t have a similar the policy therefore, it can not be effective

d.                  This will become a uniform policy if it is not globally implemented, which causes additional stress. 

e.                  Validity period:   if members decide to implement it, is it not better to recover the space if it is kept unused for too long?

f.                    How do we revoke the ROA? How long does it take to revoke it (chain/ refreshing )?

g.                   What happens if AFRINIC accidentally issues a ROA for an address in error?

h.                  It also might affect the neighbours and involves monitoring of unallocated spaces.

i.                     Possibility of it being used against a member who is yet to pay dues.

Suggestions were made to improve the policy such as 

a)                  The automatic creation of AS0 ROAs should be limited to space that has never been allocated by an RIR or part of a legacy allocation.

b)                  AFRINIC should require the explicit consent of the previous holder to issue AS0 ROAs in respect of re-claimed, returned, etc, space.

c)                   Any ROAs issued under this policy should be issued and published in a way that makes it operationally easy for a relying party to ignore them (probably by issuing under a separate TA).

d)                  The proposal should include the clause “as used in APNIC as to dues not paid on time.”

Chairs Decision: No consensus

 

8.       IPv4 Inter-RIR Resource Transfers (Comprehensive Scope)

The proposal puts in place a mechanism to transfer IPv4 and (some ASN) resources between AFRINIC and other RIRs and between AFRINIC members/entities. Some conditions are attached to the source and recipient based on need and disclosure made. The inter-RIR transfers will be suspended if the number of outgoing IPv4 addresses exceeds the incoming ones for six consecutive months. However, there are oppositions to it

a.                   ASN Transfer is not necessary

b.                  Issue of board inferring: no board in all of the five RIRs have ever been involved in deciding a transfer or allocating IP address. It is not the board's responsibility.

c.                   Suspending clause with no reinstalling clause. This mainly makes the policy potentially invalid. 

Chairs Decision: No consensus.

 

9.       AFRINIC Number Resource Transfer

a.                   Not realistic for one-way inter RIR resource transfer as it has to be reciprocal. One way would never happen as only global resources can come in and go out 

b.                  It would be difficult for the recipient to follow the rules of AFRINIC if they are not in the African region.

c.                   No need for ASN transfer. If one is moving regions and doesn't have an ASN in the new region, it can request and receive from the local RIRs

d.                  Additional attributes create none-operational complexity in the whois database.

Chairs Decision: No consensus.

 

10.   Resource Transfer Policy

This proposal aims to introduce Inter RIR transfer. However, it has the following opposition 

a.                   Issues with Legacy holder transfer is potentially considered none-reciprocal by ARIN

b.                  Potential abuse of AFRINIC free pool without the time limit of receiving an allocation from AFRINIC.

Chairs Decision: The proposal is the least contested of all the 3 competing proposals. However because of the community’s desire and clear expression for the  need for an Inter RIR transfer, we, the Co-chairs, believe that in the interest of the community we should focus on a proposal rather than several similar ones. This desire was clearly expressed at the AFRINIC 31 meeting in Angola. Therefore, We suggest that the authors of this proposal make the following amendments: 

·         5.7.3.2  Source entities are not eligible to receive further IPv4 allocations or assignments from AFRINIC for 12 months period after the transfer.

·         5.7.4.3. Transferred legacy resources will still be regarded as legacy resources.

Chairs Decision: Provided that the above are amended, the decisions is Rough Consensus is achieved             

 

Based on the above, The updated version of the follow proposal which achieved rough consensus would be posted on the PDWG website 

1.       Board Prerogatives 

2.       Resource Transfer Policy

Therefore, these two policies are now on last call. 


Co-Chair 

PDWG

 

Website, Weekly Bulletin UGPortal PGPortal

 

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Website, Weekly Bulletin UGPortal PGPortal

 

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-- 
Kind regards, 

Paschal.

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