On Jul 25, 2010, at 8:10 AM, Owen DeLong wrote: >> The logical candidate to operate option 1 was the IANA, and the RIRs were >> having none of that. (For bonus points, explain how the RIRs continue to >> exist if everyone can have all of the guaranteed-globally-unique IPv6 space >> they wanted for free.) > For bonus points, explain how the numbers side of IANA pays for anything when > the RIRs stop funding it?
None of the "sides of IANA" pay for anything. There is no binding between what parties pay and what the ICANN staff who perform the IANA function do. In fact, those staff do not have any knowledge of whether any organization has paid anything (other than what they might hear incidentally). The (zero dollar) IANA functions contract has 3 major functions, of which allocating blocks of addresses to the RIRs (and at the direction of the IETF) is one. Failure to perform that function would be interpreted as breach of contract, regardless of whether the RIRs pay anything to ICANN or not. Regards, -drc
