> On 12 Apr 2022, at 11:38 PM, Doug Barton <do...@dougbarton.us> wrote:
> 
> On 4/6/22 10:55 AM, John Curran wrote:
>> Interesting philosophy - historically ARIN customers have asked for 
>> simplicity in the relationship; i.e. a single fee that encompasses all of 
>> the services - in this way, an organization can utilize something without 
>> having to “get new approval” and there’s no financial or service 
>> disincentive for deployment of IPv6, IRR, RPKI, etc.
>> Feel free to propose an alternative structure if you think it makes sense - 
>> the suggestion process would be a good step (but feel free to run for the 
>> ARIN Board of Trustees if you want to really advocate for a different 
>> approach.)
> 
> John,
> 
> I think you raise an interesting point here. From an outside perspective it 
> seems to me that ARIN is using RPKI participation as leverage to get legacy 
> space holders to sign an LRSA. You have mentioned in past messages that this 
> is at least in part based on the desire to recover costs related to providing 
> that service. So let's look creatively at the cost issue.
> 
> Taking that claim at face value, I wonder if it's possible for ARIN to 
> compromise slightly here, in the interest of encouraging the adoption of RPKI 
> to the benefit of the Internet community. My suggestion is to open 
> participation in RPKI to anyone with legacy space who is paying ARIN a fee 
> for service, regardless of LRSA status.
> 
> Someone else mentioned creating a lightweight agreement for legacy space 
> holders who want RPKI, which I think is a good idea. I'm not up on the 
> current contents of the LRSA, but I imagine that there is an indemnification 
> clause. I would be surprised if your lawyers didn't want that for the 
> situation I'm proposing as well. Being lawyers, I imagine that they can come 
> up with other things too.  :)  But given that you're already contracting with 
> these parties for other services, a "rider" for RPKI should be easily 
> accomplished.

Doug, we’re not contracting with these parties to provide any other 
services…i.e.  there’s nothing to "add a rider to”.
(Those who have any registration services agreement with ARIN already have 
access to all services incl. RPKI) 

Based on feedback received over the years, we’ve revised the terms of RSA and 
LRSA several times to provide for friendlier terms and conditions - at this 
point they’re actually the same agreement (See 
https://www.arin.net/vault/announcements/2015/20151007.html)  

We remain open to suggestions for improving the registration services agreement 
for all of ARIN’s customers – if the community comes up with further changes, 
we can incorporate (but that will need to be per a member vote since we also, 
per community request, locked down the agreement so it couldn’t be unilaterally 
changed by the ARIN.)   

ARIN’s RSA is structured appropriately for a not-for-profit membership 
organization in which members have open participation and governance mechanisms 
that help them shape the services, policies and fees that will be provided.  If 
one looks at the RSA expecting it to be a commercial services agreement (e.g., 
such as one would receive for domain name hosting) then indeed it is quite 
different, but that’s because the RiRs are structured as five cooperating 
not-for-profit membership organizations that instantiate the cooperation within 
the network operator community for a globally unique Internet number registry, 
with agreements that have everyone joining the registry system for that 
purpose. This works extremely well and meets the expectations of many of the 
registry customers globally – but such a model doesn’t align with the 
expectations voiced by some legacy resource holders.  

I also would like to see RPKI more widely deployed, and happy to work on making 
the RSA “more lightweight” for all ARIN customers to the extent possible, but 
that requires clearly articulated feedback on changes that need to be made, 
including the reasoning.  Those with legacy resources have been receiving free 
basic services for nearly 25 years, and even now have a very favorable cap on 
their annual ARIN fees if they do enter into an RSA – i.e., there are 
incentives in place, and the situation for a legacy resource holder who signed 
an RSA is actually more favorable than the 15000+ other ARIN customers who 
don’t receive the more favorable terms. 

The good news is that this is ultimately in the hands of the ARIN membership, 
so engagement with that community on further desired changes for legacy 
resource holders is the best path forward. 

Thanks,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers



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