ASO AC Meeting Thursday 18 May 2000

Budapest, Hungary

Present:

Cathy Wittbrodt (CW)
Takashi Arano (TA)
Hans Petter Holen (HH)
Wilfried Woeber (WW)
Sabine Jaume (SJ)
Mirjam Kuehne (MK)
Axel Pawlik (AP)
Raimundo Beca (RB)
Louis Touton (LT)
Paul Wilson (PW)
Hyun Je Park (HP)

1. Welcome

Hans Petter Holen (HH) opened the meeting, and noted that a quorum of
Address Council members was present.

Louis Touton (LT) from ICANN was welcomed to the meeting.

AfriNIC's designated observer Ant Brookes (from ISPA South Africa) was
unable to reach Budapest in time for this meeting.

2. Membership of the ac-coord mailing list

ICANN has requested that Louis Touton be added to this list, in addition to
a policy officer now being recruited. No objections noted.

3. Emerging registry observers

Discussion about observers and listeners designated by Emerging RIRs. It was
noted that ICANN has officially conveyed AfriNIC's request to the AC,
however only one observer is provided under the ASO MOU. Designated
listeners therefore do not have official status.

It is proposed however that the AC should recognise and actively welcome
both the observers and listeners which have been designated by AfriNIC. It
is proposed to admit all observers/listeners to ac-coord, but only the
official observers to attend phone and face-face meetings. No objections
noted.

4. AC meeting schedule

It is proposed that the AC should meet by teleconference at a fixed time on
a designated day each month.

Specifically, the regular teleconference is proposed for the first Wednesday
of each month, at 2200UTC. Meetings should be planned as 1 hour in duration
only.

Next meeting to be held therefore on Wed 7 June (8 June in AU/JP/KR).

It is proposed that the phone system to be used may be rotated to share
costs among AC members; however some members would prefer that for
reliability a single system should be used (unless the cost becomes
prohibitive to any AC member).

SJ volunteered the use of her teleconference system for the next meeting.

A room had been reserved in Yokohama for an AC meeting during the INET
conference, but as few AC members can make it, it will be cancelled. Thanks
expressed to Takashi Arano for making this arrangement.

The next face-to-face AC meeting will be in Brisbane, Australia, on Saturday
28 October (directly after the APNIC meeting on 25-27 October).

LT recommended that the AC should send one person to each ICANN meeting.

TA offered to represent the AC at the Yokohama meeting, and requests the
opportunity to meet with other AC members beforehand, to prepare
presentation.

It was noted that next RIPE meeting will be held from 12 to 15 September in
Amsterdam; and the next ARIN meeting in early October, at a location not yet
announced.

5. ICANN director elections

It is noted that the AC needs to appoint a replacement for Pindar Wong,
whose term expires on 30 September 2000. ICANN must be advised of the
appointment by 15 September at the latest (15 days in advance, according to
the ICANN Bylaws).

It is proposed that the AC should call for expressions of support for
candidates who have been nominated so far, with a 30-day deadline (by 30
June at latest). Then, the decision should be made at the July
teleconference (Wednesday 5 July)

6. IRP NOMCOM membership

LT provided an explanation of ICANN's Independent Review Panel (IRP)
structure. The panel is intended to include people such as judges, nominated
by a committee (nomcom) which is appointed by SOs (2 nominees from each).
Noted that nomcom members cannot come from SOs or other parts of ICANN
structure. It is suggested that a public process be used to gather suggested
nomcom members, and the AC (or small committee) make the selection.

Agreed that an announcement should be written to be emailed/posted to
community, with call for proposals. Suggested response period of 30 days
(with aim to consider responses during 5 July meeting).

Noted that ICANN does not have a deadline for filling this committee, but
their target is by the end of September

Question raised as to whether, if noone applies, the committee can have
standing vacancies. This is unclear.

7. New gTLD policy

DNSO has made policy recommendation to ICANN, which now has been circulated
to other SOs for their comment. The recommendation is that new gTLDs should
be adopted (though specific gTLDs are not given), then assessed after an
initial period. LT commented that ICANN's expectation that the initial batch
should be less than 6.

Some discussion followed about proposal for name servers to receive portable
addresses, and whether this is necessary and/or likely to be accepted by
RIRs. Discussion of the possibility of large increase in gTLDs - this is
likely to be perhaps one order of magnitude increase over several years, but
not more.

Conclusion is that there is no address policy issue to be concerned about in
connection with this proposal. New name servers can be brought online and
addressed adequately under existing policies of RIRs in any region. However,
AC would like opportunity to comment again after initial trial period. No
disagreement.

A question was raised as to whether the AC can actively support this
proposal, but it was agreed that it is strictly out of the AC's scope to do
so.

8. Response to Mike Roberts on global policy

It was noted that Mike Roberts submitted a request to the AC last year to
build their policy agenda, among other things. A response was drafted soon
after, but it was not concluded. It was not clear in the original letter
what type of response may be needed and when.

LT advised that the letter was intended as an initial suggestion/prompt for
activity, with no formal or specific response needed. It is generally
expected that as general rule, things continue to work as they have done
until something comes along to change them. Agreed that one example of
global address policy is the delegation to RIRs of specific
responsibilities. This is generally accepted by the Internet community,
however while there have been some differences in views, there are few
substantial disagreements. The distinction between global and regional
policy issues may itself be a global policy issue, which the AC can help to
clarify, and so avoid misunderstandings in the future. For example, IANA has
always made direct assignments. e.g. loopback, private address space, etc.

CW suggested that all such allocations should go through stakeholders (IETF,
ASO, RIRs etc)

WW suggested that anyone who writes to AC is entitled to receive a
reasonable answer, and that AC should write some kind of response within a
reasonable time. Also suggested that we need to establish reasonable
environment for discussion between all parties. (e.g. in relation to
transition from experimental usage of resources to production deployment,
when responsibilities should lie with RIRs).

MK remarked that the RIR's initial policy proposal was an effort to clarify
roles, however it still needs further work to include comments which have
been received (e.g. on distinction between allocations experimental and
operational purposes).

LT points out that according to ICANN's MoU with IETF, IANA will perform its
functions essentially as IETF directs (see 4.3). Under this MoU, assignment
issues are outside of scope of MoU, except for specialised address blocks
and experimental allocations. These are not seen as policy issues, and shall
remain subject to this MoU. If the IETF has an experimental proposal, RIRs
should participate within the IETF on that issue. Under IETF MoU, IANA would
have to comply with request for experimental space from IETF.

Summary of action on this item:

WW to draft a response to Mike Roberts, describing current situation and
agreed way forward. This to include: goal to provide freedom for
experimentation, testbeds etc (as in the past), and that all other
operational issues should be sent to RIRs.

WW proposes that there should be a joint meeting with reps from IANA and AC,
and RIRs in Brisbane during the APNIC meeting.

9. Emerging RIRs

PW provides summary of current status of the document. Comments have been
received and incorporated into a redraft, however some comments need
additional work before they can be included. Intention is to gather input
from the General Assembly, as well as outstanding comments, and produce a
further draft in the near future.

SJ suggests including a mechanism for advisory services to be provided by
RIRs to emerging registries if they express a need for those services.

WW: should be included in document as something that existing RIRs should be
prepared to provide.

LT mentioned that there may be some remaining legal concerns with the
document, and rewording may be needed. Agrees to advise further.

RB mentions proposal from LACNIC to specify the use of English for
registrations, but not for internal archives. Agrees to provide specific
wording by email.

Summary of process required:

- Present current draft to GA
- Collect comments so far with inputs from GA
- Redraft document on basis of those inputs
- Call for final comments, with 30-day timeline for comments
- Finalise document
- Consider at July meeting and endorse if possible

10. Promoting AC activities

It is agreed that fixed meeting dates will help to build awareness of AC
activities, with regular minutes published.

It is proposed to appoint one or more deputy chairs of the AC. This is
agreed, and Takashi Arano and Cathy Wittbrodt are appointed.

11. RIR administrative issues

TA asks about the status of 24/8, the address block originally designated by
IANA for cable network assignments. The proposed transfer of responsibility
for 24/8 from IANA to ARIN is discussed.

LT agrees that the transfer itself may be considered an administrative
issue, and comments that there may be a need to define policy which
clarifies why a separate cable block is not needed anymore.

ACTION on the RIRs and IANA to draft a policy document and submit it to the
AC.

TA notes that there are different initial allocation criteria in the regions
and wonders if these policies should be globally aligned?

LT asks what the reasons are for having one global policy for that?

CW suggests that the other RIRs should use ARIN's initial allocation policy.
HH notes that ARIN's policy creates a different competitive environment (for
example, small ISPs are forced to go to big ISPs for address space).

Discussion ensues about differences in policy generally, and whether some
"policies" are in fact procedural and implementation matters (for example,
the process of Assignment Window administration, and verification of ISP
Assignment Windows, which may be done by RIRs before or after assignments
are made).

It was decided to work on the global policy document, then on a revision of
RFC2050 (already proposed in one of the ARIN Working Groups) which should
then be referenced by the global policy document.

12. Finalising GA agenda

The GA agenda is finalised as follows:

Welcome
AC report
Emerging RIR reports
Policy proposals:
- JPNIC Proposal
- Emerging RIR document
- RIR Global Policy Recommendation
Open forum

13. Draft procedural document

TA gives explanation of AC Procedures document which was developed.

It is noted that under the MoU, the AC is intended to respond to policy
proposals, rather than undertake policy development by itself.

LT suggests that whenever reasonable, the community should use RIR
processes, however the AC needs to be sensitive to case where someone may
claim not to be represented.

Agreed that regardless of how the issue reaches the AC, the AC should
firstly refer to regional processes. If this fails, then AC may assemble a
task force (expert group etc) to make an independent assessment, the result
of which is then referred to regional process. Referral may also be made to
an IETF working group.

HPH comments that a good example is the case of the GPRS task force in the
RIPE community.

It was agreed that a sub group of the AC, including CW, TA and SJ, will
produce the next redraft of the document.

14. Other Business

14.1 Inactive AC members

Concerns were raised about non-participating AC members.

Since RIRs are able to recall a member for any reason, it is suggested that
the AC may report an inactive member to the relevant RIR, for action as that
RIR sees fit.

14.2 ip6.int

LT raised the matter of the ip6.int domain. The IETF and IAB are in the
process of reviewing the .int TLD, and moving infrastructure names to .arpa
(e.g. ip6.int becomes ip6.arpa). No action required by the AC.

Meeting close 12.30pm

Last modified on 29/01/2020